{"id":684220,"date":"2026-05-21T01:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684220\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T01:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:54:23","slug":"astros-to-select-alimber-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/684220\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros To Select Alimber Santa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Astros are selecting reliever\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=santa-000ali&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-20_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alimber Santa<\/a> onto the MLB roster, reports <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hgomez27\/status\/2057219130583900434\" rel=\"nofollow\">H\u00e9ctor G\u00f3mez<\/a>. Houston opened a spot on the 40-man roster by <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/05\/astros-designate-cody-bolton-for-assignment.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">designating<\/a> righty\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/boltoco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-20_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cody Bolton<\/a> for assignment on Monday. They\u2019ll only need to create an active roster spot by optioning a pitcher before Friday\u2019s series opener at Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the first MLB call for the 23-year-old Santa. The 5\u201910\u201d righty signed with Houston for $75K as an amateur out of the Dominican Republic in 2020. He struggled early in his minor league career but earned a nomination to last year\u2019s Futures Game with an impressive season. Santa turned in a 2.31 earned run average while striking out 28% of opponents across 70 innings between the top two minor league levels.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/players\/8951-alimber-santa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Baseball America<\/a> ranked Santa the #28 prospect in the Houston system over the winter. Their offseason scouting report credited him with a five-pitch arsenal, but this season\u2019s Triple-A pitch tracking data indicates he has only used a mid-80s slider and a 94-95 mph four-seam fastball. Santa\u2019s slider has been his best pitch throughout his time in the minors. He\u2019s using it almost two-thirds of the time with strong results.<\/p>\n<p>This year, Santa has fanned 32% of opponents while allowing only five runs (three earned) over 19 Triple-A innings. His 9.2% walk rate is close to league average, an improvement after he walked 13% of batters faced a year ago. He has plunked three batters and has a career 14.3% walk percentage over six minor league seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Santa will come to town hoping to boost a bullpen that has been one of the worst in the Majors. They carried an MLB-high 5.78 ERA into play Wednesday, though that\u2019ll drop slightly after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/blubaaj01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-20_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">AJ Blubaugh<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pearsna01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-05-20_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Nate Pearson<\/a> combined for two scoreless innings today. Houston relievers have allowed the most home runs (35) while ranking in the bottom third of the league in strikeout rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Astros are selecting reliever\u00a0Alimber Santa onto the MLB roster, reports H\u00e9ctor G\u00f3mez. Houston opened a spot on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[329838,64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-684220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alimber-santa","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}