Houston signed reliever Enyel De Los Santos on Aug. 8, and he’s already paying dividends.
The seven-year Major League veteran earned his first win as an Astro last night against the Baltimore Orioles at Daikin Park, tossing 2.0 scoreless frames in an extra-inning epic that Houston eventually won 5-4 in the 12th.
De Los Santos recorded six outs on just 13 pitches—including a spectacular two-pitch 11th—to keep the Orioles at bay long enough for Ramon Urias to hit a walk-off fielder’s choice.
That 11th inning began with an 87 mph slider down in the zone, inducing a flyout from Ryan Mountcastle. Then, with the automatic runner on third, De Los Santos used a changeup that was lined to third baseman Carlos Correa for a double play.
And just like that, inning over. Those two pitches were all it took to drop Baltimore’s win probability by 30.7%, according to MLB.com. De Los Santos came back out for the 12th and tossed a 1-2-3 inning with 11 pitches.
“We’re finding out a lot about a lot of these guys right now,” Houston manager Joe Espada said, per MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart. “We’re in that spot in the season where we’re going to need a lot of these guys to get big outs, and De Los Santos just did that.”
De Los Santos would’ve had his first at-bat since 2019, too, if Urias didn’t knock in the game-winning run. The Astros had emptied their bench and the pitcher’s spot was due up next.
“Urias did a great job there, because I don’t know what might have happened afterward,” De Los Santos said.
Now, Houston will try to earn its fourth consecutive series victory with a win over Baltimore today. The Astros are just 1.5 games ahead of the Seattle Mariners for the AL West lead.