Former Guardians reliever enjoying role change in Astros’ beleaguered bullpen

Sometimes in MLB, desperation breeds innovation. 

There’s perhaps no team in MLB more desperate than the Houston Astros. While they’re only 2 1/2 games behind the AL West-leading Athletics, they already have 10 pitchers on the injured list, with the arms ranging from afterthoughts (Cody Bolton) to incredibly important (Josh Hader and Tatsuya Imai). 

That bevy of injuries has resulted in manager Joe Espada needing to think out of the box when it comes to the end of games, and his latest line of thinking should look plenty familiar to Guardians fans. 

With Hader down and incumbent closer Bryan Abreu struggling, Espada has turned to former Guardians reliever Enyel De Los Santos to pick up saves in back-to-back games during the week. 

Could we be seeing De Los Santos evolve into Houston’s closer right before our very eyes? 

Former Guardian Enyel De Los Santos is becoming a valuable reliever for the Astros 

De Los Santos is in the midst of his second season with the Astros after they claimed him off waivers last August. They let him loose after the 2025 season, but he re-upped with them in the offseason. 

While he pitched mostly in middle-to-low leverage last season (the role he’s filled throughout most of his career), he’s quickly becoming an important high-leverage reliever this season. 

He picked up his first save of the season in Houston’s wild 7-6 win over the Rockies on Tuesday where Houston had to use five relievers to pick up the win. 

Espada initially called upon Bryan King to pick up the five-out save, but he pivoted to De Los Santos with two outs in the ninth with runners on first and third and the big right-hander was able to get the job done and strike out Jordan Beck looking. 

He recorded his second save the following day with a spotless 1-2-3 that ended with yet another strikeout. 

After De Los Santos picked up Tuesday’s save, Espada said that his goal with the bullpen is based more on getting hitters in good pockets (favorable matchups) than putting them in defined roles. 

But he may have tipped his hand the next day by calling upon De Los Santos in the ninth inning after using Abreu in the eighth inning. 

And, based on how things have gone this season, it makes sense that Espada would prefer to use De Los Santos to close out games as opposed to Abreu, who entered the weekend with a 12.79 ERA in 6 1/3 innings. 

While De Los Santos has been a bit of a journeyman, he had a 3.18 ERA in 119 innings in his two seasons with the Guardians, so it’s clear that can be a successful reliever who gets big leaguers out. 

It looks like the Astros may have figured out a way to benefit from that. 

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