Who needs lefty relievers? Not, apparently, the Astros, even against lefty-heavy Twins

June 18, 2024

HOUSTON — On the afternoon Houston clinched an improbable American League West title, Bennett Sousa savored his surroundings. After authoring a scoreless seventh inning during the Astros’ 8-1 win against Arizona, he sipped a Budweiser and sported a champagne-soaked T-shirt inside the celebratory clubhouse.

Four teams placed Sousa on waivers across the season’s first seven months: the Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers. His fifth club offered the championship chance he craved — even if it came with a caveat.

“I wanted to be on a winning team and have an opportunity with that winning team. There was an opportunity here for lefty relievers,” Sousa said. “The playoffs really started for us with two weeks left in the season. It kind of felt like I was in playoff mode and contributing when I could.”

Sousa’s season ended that afternoon at Chase Field, before the Astros’ actual postseason journey even began. Players must be in an organization by Sept. 1 to qualify for its playoff roster.

The Astros claimed Sousa off waivers from the Detroit Tigers on Sept. 3. He faced 20 batters across Houston’s final 15 regular-season games. He surrendered one hit, struck out eight and did not permit a run, offering a reprieve for Houston’s overworked bullpen.

“I was one of the freshest guys in the bullpen. I only had like 30 innings all year, so I was ready to keep going and be a workhorse,” said Sousa, who threw 29 1/3 innings this season across the major and minor leagues.

“But, yeah, it sucked. The season ended and the guys are still going. They’re all playing and I’m sitting around. It is what it is. It’s a stupid rule, but I can’t change it.”

Including Sousa on Houston’s American League Division Series roster against a Minnesota Twins team loaded with left-handed bats seemed logical. He would have made it if eligible, general manager Dana Brown acknowledged before Game 1.

Instead, the Astros are playing another postseason series without a left-handed reliever in their bullpen. The team did not carry one during last season’s Division Series or American League Championship Series, either. Will Smith made the team’s World Series roster, but never appeared in a game.

For a time, Will Smith was the standard-bearer for Astros bullpen lefties. (Troy Taormina / USA Today)

“The deal with the left-handed pitcher, if he’s not as good as your righty, there’s no need to carry him just to say we have a lefty on the roster,” Brown said. “So we felt like our righties were good enough to get the left-handers out. We felt like we didn’t have to carry a lefty.”

Brown is in his first season overseeing the team’s baseball operations department, but his sentiment is one shared by both of his predecessors and Houston’s entire pitching infrastructure. Platoon advantages make sense on paper, but perhaps aren’t gospel. Elite hitters handle either hand well. Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker are living proof in the middle of Houston’s batting order.

Left-handed relievers have thrown 422 innings for the Astros across the past seven seasons. No other team has fewer than 600 over that period and no other American League team has fewer than 700. Nineteen clubs have gotten at least 900 innings from southpaws since 2017.

Astros relievers still limited left-handed hitters to a .222/.305/.366 slash line during that span. Only the Yankees, Rays and Dodgers held lefties to a lower batting average and only Yankees relievers have posted a higher strikeout rate against lefties than Houston’s 26.5 percent clip. The Yankees received 1,043 2/3 innings from left-handed relievers.

“We’re not anti left-handed. We’re pro good pitcher,” Houston pitching coach Josh Miller said. “It just so happens that within the last couple years, we’ve trended toward good right-handed pitchers and not as many lefties in terms of numbers, but we have some talented left-handed pitchers in the upper levels of the organization, too. We expect them to develop and get better and hopefully we’ll see some of them as we go forward.”

The Astros’ ability to neutralize left-handers without any of their own is a testament to tailoring specific matchups late in games while targeting right-handed relievers without stark reverse splits. Chris Devenski’s changeup devastated left-handed hitters during his five-year Houston tenure. Will Harris crushed them with his cutter from 2016-19. Former general manager Jeff Luhnow used to joke that those two righties were his left-handed relievers.

Now, Hector Neris and Ryne Stanek throw splitters that neutralize left-handed hitters. Rafael Montero’s changeup can do something similar. Bryan Abreu is so dominant that handedness hardly matters. Neris, Stanek and Montero all finished the season with more favorable splits against left-handers than righties, though Neris did surrender a massive three-run home run to left-handed hitting Jorge Polanco during Game 1 of the ALDS.

Manager Dusty Baker has spent most of his four-year tenure begging for a consistent left-hander in his bullpen. In 2020, former general manager James Click acknowledged he acquired Brooks Raley, in part, to satisfy Baker’s wishes. Raley morphed into perhaps the club’s best left-handed reliever of the past five seasons. He parlayed the success into a two-year, $10 million free-agent deal with the Tampa Bay Rays. Houston has not really replaced him, much to Baker’s chagrin.

Some irony exists, then, that Sousa starred throughout September but now sits idle when the stakes are the highest. The 28-year-old reliever has already begun his offseason lifting program and is no longer throwing — as he noted, “there’s no need” — but Sousa will remain with the team throughout its October run.

“It’s definitely been a roller coaster,” Sousa said. “I joke around (that) if I had a wife and kids, it would be a crazy year. But it’s actually nice that I’m just single and can bounce around and meet a lot of different guys. It’s been a crazy year, but the end result has been unbelievable.”

Whether Sousa has found a permanent home hinges on spring training. The Astros’ facility is in West Palm Beach, Fla., where Sousa makes his offseason home. Sousa’s high school teammate and close friend, Kyle Ruedisilli, is the Astros’ coordinator of advanced scouting and a member of the traveling party. That familiarity made his introduction even easier.

Sousa’s short bullet slider initially enticed the Astros to put in a waiver claim. Sousa spun it 61 times in his five appearances. It generated a 50 percent whiff rate and a 56.3 percent strikeout rate. A sinker he learned during his time with the Brewers performed well, too, complementing a four-seam fastball that can run up to 96 mph.

Such a small sample size requires a proper perspective, but Sousa does see the glaring opportunity before him. Brown acknowledged this week the club needs more left-handed relievers at the upper minor leagues and made it seem like he intends to add some — but not simply for show. He wants a difference-maker.

“Five teams in one year, you don’t really see that a lot,” Sousa said. “Five teams claimed me, so clearly teams are interested, it’s just like why do you keep getting (let go)? I don’t know the answer to that, but hopefully I found a home here.”

GO DEEPER

Baker tells multiple people he's done managing

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