Astros Report Card: Grading the 2019 relief pitchers; Part I

Hector Rondon:  C+

Another one of the Astros relief pitchers on the free-agent market, Hector Rondon had kind of a mixed bag of a season. He had one start in the season that was horrid and skewed some of his overall season stats. As a middle reliever, he had a pretty decent season, but when called in from the bullpen in a few clutch situations, he didn’t do so well.

Late in the season, Rondon was tagged to start in one of AJ Hinch‘s “bullpen” games when the team was experiencing a shortage of starting pitchers. To say the least, it didn’t turn out so well. In Rondon’s only career “start”, he surrendered six runs on five hits and a walk in 0.2 innings. That’s an ERA of 81.0 as a starter on the season.

That one disastrous start swelled Rondon’s ERA from 3.34 to 4.79 in one game, nearly 1.5 runs. At the season’s end, his ERA stood at 3.71, but when you take away that start, his ERA as a reliever was a respectable 2.85.

Rondon was a workhorse appearing in 61 games out of the pen for 60 innings, tied with Will Harris for the fourth-most innings in relief and just 0.1 behind Josh James. He ended the season with a 3-1 record and amassed the third most holds with 19.

What seemed to put a sour taste in the mouths of may fans was his poor performances in some clutch situations. Rondon entered the game in save opportunities three times in 2019 and blew all three saves. But his main role out of the bullpen was as a middle reliever and when pitching in those situations, for the most part, Rondon did his job.