Astros relievers and arent 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 ( ). A return during the postseason is po sible 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 didnt 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, Sousas first appearance in the majors this season came on April 9. He opened the year with eight scorele s innings before finally yielding his first run, and he hasnt really looked back. In 50 2/3 frames, Sousa has shown virtually no ill effect from the surgery. If anything, hes better than ever. Sousa Todd Helton Jersey has worked a career-high number of innings and is sitting on a sharp 2.84 ERA thats supported by metrics like FIP (2.73) and SIERA (2.95). Hes set down a hearty 29.6% of his opponents on strikes, i sued walks to just 7.5% of the batters hes 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 itd be hard to be much worse theyre 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 hasnt been as effective, but his 4.89 ERA is arguably a bit misleading. Hes 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 to s 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, hes yielded only a .188/.311/.317 batting line. Left-handers have bludgeoned him at a .254/.342/.524 clip. Ort hasnt been a key piece of the Astros high-leverage corps. Hes typically worked in middle relief. Sousa has tallied seven holds and four saves, and his role had begun to increase after 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 Houstons path to postseason ball. The Astros are still very, very strong postseason favorites, but theyre 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. Itd take a considerable collapse to drop out of the playoff field entirely, but its not entirely out of the realm of po sibility (even if its a long shot). A full contingent of relievers, obviously, would improve the Astros chances of hanging onto the division lead, but theyre instead trying to piece together the bulk of the relief corps. , and have been strong basically all season, but the rest of the bullpen is filled out by veteran newcomers ( , ), rookies ( , , ) and struggling righty (6.97 ERA in 50 1/3 innings). Both De Los Santos (0.69 ERA in 13 innings) and Kimbrel (6 2/3 scorele s) have been quite effective, though the latter has walked seven of the 27 batters hes faced (25.9%). Houston will keep trying to get by with that patchwork bullpen. A suming they do make the postseason, itd be a big boost if even one of those more seasoned arms Hader or Sousa, in particular could make it back to Joe Espadas bullpen, but theres no guarantee any of the three are back in the fold this year. Luis Peralta Jersey