Miguel Ullola saved his best performance of his young career for the Astros biggest game so far this season with 3.0 innings of scoreless baseball.
Ullola entered the game as the Astros were trailing by one run, 4-3, to the Athletics . The team had built a 3-0 lead only to squander it with a four-run third inning off Peter Lambert . Bryan King recorded the final outs of the third inning before working a scoreless fourth with a double allowed.
Ullola struck out one in a perfect fifth inning facing the meat of the Athletics order. Isaac Paredes would tie the game with a solo shot in the sixth. Ullola came back out for the bottom of the sixth and threw another perfect frame.
After Lucas Spence's second homer of his three-homer night gave the Astros the lead, Ullola returned for the seventh. He quickly got two outs before facing Lawrence Butler . Butler scorched a ball off the right field wall that narrowly missed tying the game.
Ullola wouldn't let that faze him as he settled in to retire the next batter on a fly ball. The Astros wouldn't relinquish the lead, giving Ullola his second career win.
The move to bring in Ullola for a long relief outing showed the Astros' lack of confidence in the team's former starting pitchers sitting in the bullpen, Ronel Blanco and Tatsuya Imai . It doesn't reflect well on the pair that the Astros went with the rookie instead of Imai and Blanco.
Houston Astros pitcher Miguel Ullola (66) Credit: Erik Williams-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Ullola also earned the win in the last Astro victory . This one came in 2.0 innings of also scoreless baseball. He fanned two in that contest.
Ullola hails from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where he signed with the Astros in January 2021 as a 19-year-old. He pitched well in the Dominican League in 2021 before coming up to the Astros' domestic minor league teams.
He pitched to a 3.25 ERA in 72.0 innings exclusively with Low-A Fayetteville in 2022. He spent 2023, one rung up the ladder in High-A Asheville, but his numbers weren't incredibly impressive.
Despite that, he still moved up in 2024, with time spent in (Double-A) Corpus Christi and eventually (Triple-A) Sugar Land. He was with Sugar Land all of 2025. Posting a 3.88 ERA and a 7-6 record.
After his success down on the farm, Ullola was ranked as the No. 14 player in the Astros minor league system ahead of the 2026 season.
With a 4.21 ERA at Sugar Land in the high-scoring Pacific Coast League in 2026, he was called up to the Astros and moved back and forth between the two teams.
So far with the Astros, Ullola has a 2.30 ERA in 10 games with 15 strikeouts in 15.2 innings.
Ullola delivered when it mattered most for the Astros. He has suddenly emerged as someone the Astros can trust out of the bullpen as the season winds down to the final three games.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/astros/onsi as Astros Turn to Miguel Ullola in Biggest Moment and Rookie Delivers .
