Astros relievers Bennett Sousa and Kaleb Ort aren’t likely to make it back to the big league roster before the end of the regular season, general manager Dana Brown revealed in a radio appearance on SportsTalk 790 AM this weekend (via Chandler Rome of The Athletic). A return during the postseason is possible for both pitchers. Sousa has been out since Aug. 20 due to a mild flexor/pronator strain. Ort landed on the 15-day IL this past Friday due to elbow inflammation.
Sousa, 30, emerged from relative obscurity with a breakout performance in 2025. The ’Stros claimed him off waivers in Sept. 2023 and were already his fifth organization of the calendar year at that point. He pitched 6 1/3 shutout frames down the stretch, showing enough to hold a 40-man roster spot. Sousa didn’t pitch in the majors or minors in 2024, however, as he required surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome in early April.
Returning just over one year later, Sousa’s first appearance in the majors this season came on April 9. He opened the year with eight scoreless innings before finally yielding his first run, and he hasn’t really looked back. In 50 2/3 frames, Sousa has shown virtually no ill effect from the surgery. If anything, he’s better than ever.
Sousa has worked a career-high number of innings and is sitting on a sharp 2.84 ERA that’s supported by metrics like FIP (2.73) and SIERA (2.95). He’s set down a hearty 29.6% of his opponents on strikes, issued walks to just 7.5% of the batters he’s faced, and has allowed only 0.71 homers per nine innings pitched. Left-handers have posted a terrible .145/.191/.242 batting line against him, and while righties have been better than that — it’d be hard to be much worse — they’re still sporting a rather tepid .235/.300/.378 slash against him. Sousa was virtually untouchable through early July (1.83 ERA), but he struggled to a 4.96 mark with vastly worse command in 16 1/3 innings before hitting the IL last month.
Ort hasn’t been as effective, but his 4.89 ERA is arguably a bit misleading. He’s had two complete nightmare outings this season — one in which he was tagged for five runs in one-third of an inning and another one (his last before hitting the IL) where he surrendered four runs in two-thirds of an inning. Any pitcher will look better when you toss out his worst couple outings of the season, but Ort has a 3.20 ERA through 45 innings in his other 47 appearances.
Command has been one of two glaring flaws for Ort, evidenced both by his 13.9% walk rate and his 1.57 HR/9 mark. The other is his susceptibility to left-handed hitters. When facing fellow righties, he’s yielded only a .188/.311/.317 batting line. Left-handers have bludgeoned him at a .254/.342/.524 clip.
Ort hasn’t been a key piece of the Astros’ high-leverage corps. He’s typically worked in middle relief. Sousa has tallied seven holds and four saves, and his role had begun to increase after Josh Hader was lost for the remainder of the regular season in mid-August. Hader, Sousa and Ort all hope to be able to return in October, but their absence complicates Houston’s path to postseason ball.
The Astros are still very, very strong postseason favorites, but they’re hardly locks to win the division. Houston sits 2.5 games up on Seattle at the moment, and the two teams still have a three-game series against each other on the schedule. It’d take a considerable collapse to drop out of the playoff field entirely, but it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility (even if it’s a long shot).
A full contingent of relievers, obviously, would improve the Astros’ chances of hanging onto the division lead, but they’re instead trying to piece together the bulk of the relief corps. Bryan Abreu, Bryan King and Steven Okert have been strong basically all season, but the rest of the bullpen is filled out by veteran newcomers (Enyel De Los Santos, Craig Kimbrel), rookies (AJ Blubaugh, Jayden Murray, Logan VanWey) and struggling righty Lance McCullers Jr. (6.97 ERA in 50 1/3 innings). Both De Los Santos (0.69 ERA in 13 innings) and Kimbrel (6 2/3 scoreless) have been quite effective, though the latter has walked seven of the 27 batters he’s faced (25.9%).
Houston will keep trying to get by with that patchwork bullpen. Assuming they do make the postseason, it’d be a big boost if even one of those more seasoned arms — Hader or Sousa, in particular — could make it back to Joe Espada’s bullpen, but there’s no guarantee any of the three are back in the fold this year.
Not good for a team that needs everything they can get. Hader to the IL was the first and biggest blow. This doesn’t help at all.
Sousa likely overperformed slightly in results, but his underlying skills (SIERA) back up that he’s still a legitimately strong arm. His success wasn’t all smoke and mirrors. Think of him as a solid reliever who benefited from some help behind him, but with sustainable ability.
Ort pitched to about the level of his results—no hidden upside here. Even his skill-based metric (SIERA) keeps him in the “replacement-level” bucket. Losing him wouldn’t cost much.
Ask any Red Sox fans what they think about Ort potentially pitching in October. Hopefully, it will be against Boston…
I’m looking forward to their series against the jays. If I expect to happens happens and the Mariners stop shooting themselves in dem dar feets it could close that gap or even seal it. With them hosting the cards it’s a big possibility to over take them and lead that division for the first time in like maybe almost 4* months ago.
Unless you’re one of the top two seeds, winning the division doesn’t really matter. There’s little difference in the 3 seed and the 6. And before anyone says “home field advantage”, the Astros have lost their last seven (7!!!) home playoff games. Rangers won 11 road playoff games on their way to winning the WS, Phillies got to the WS as a WC, etc. Further credence to “hey man, just get in.” Besides, if you wanna win the World Series, eventually you’re gonna have to win playoff games on the road whether that be in the WCS, LDS, LCS, WS or all of them. I can’t recall a champion that never HAD to win a road game at some point in October.
Yes. I’m No proponent on HF advantage. My focus was basically on that last WC since it looks as though the AL east teams are going to take at 2 of them if things go as they have been. They want to win that division but if they don’t they’re still in. That last one is up for grabs and with something like 18 game left…. Detroits a lock in their division by 8 games and still KC is only 4gb in the WC and like KC that last one is up for a more than a few teams . if the mariners or stroes win theirs it’s more chance that the team coming in second will be bumped from the playoffs
This is poorly-written: “A full contingent of relievers, obviously, would improve the Astros’ chances of hanging onto the division lead…”
Either you start the sentence with “Obviously, a full contingent” or have “obviously” after “would,” as in “A full contingent of relievers would obviously improve the Astros’ chances.” Putting “obviously” in the middle of the sentence between commas is wrong and needlessly interrupting syntax.