Andrés Muñoz threw a 101.1 mph fastball to Lawrence Butler in the ninth inning on September 13, 2026 — and Butler sent it into the seats for a walk-off. The two-run home run gave the Athletics an 8-7 win over the Mariners at Sutter Health Park, and it pushed Muñoz to 10 blown saves on the season, the most of any pitcher in MLB right now. This is not the same Muñoz who closed out 2025 with 38 saves and a 1.73 ERA. And yet his Statcast profile still reads like one of the best relievers in the game. That’s what makes this so strange.
The Number That Stings
As recently as September 10, Muñoz was tied with Kyle Finnegan at nine blown saves, co-leading the league. Three days later he stood alone at the top — just not the side of the leaderboard anyone wants to own. His 2026 line now sits at 5-6 with 27 saves in 58 appearances.
What makes this particular blown save hard to process is the context. Muñoz wasn’t laboring that night — he hit 102.1 mph in the eighth inning of the same game. Butler’s walk-off came on a 101.1 mph heater, the kind of pitch that on most nights, against most hitters, ends in a strikeout. The Mexican closer is being punished by results that his own Statcast data struggles to explain.
The sequence mattered too: Muñoz entered in the eighth with a one-run lead, got two outs, then couldn’t close the ninth. The Butler homer was the exclamation point on a night that had that feel to it. Seattle fell to 70-80 with 12 games left — effectively eliminated — while Oakland, at 61-89, has taken five of their last seven meetings with the Mariners.
The Contrast With 2025
Last season, Muñoz was an All-Star. He finished 2025 with 38 saves, a 1.73 ERA, a 1.03 WHIP, and a .167 average against — by any measure, one of the most dominant closers in baseball. Then in August 2026, he became just the third Mexican-born pitcher to reach 100 career saves in the major leagues, joining Joakim Soria (229) and Roberto Osuna (155). A genuine, historic milestone for Mexican baseball.
One month later, he leads the league in blown saves. Both of those things are true at the same time.
The question isn’t whether Muñoz lost his stuff — his 99th-percentile velocity says he hasn’t. The question is what’s happening in the moments when hitters do make contact. His 4.25 ERA against a 3.36 xERA tell the same story together: the results are worse than the quality of contact he’s allowing would suggest. Something in his execution under pressure isn’t closing the same way it did a year ago, and the Mariners don’t have enough season left to wait it out.
His 2026 Numbers on the Mound
- Appearances/Innings: 58 G, 55.0 IP
- ERA: 4.25 · WHIP: 1.18
- Strikeouts/Walks: 86 K, 23 BB (37.4% strikeout rate)
- Saves: 27
- xERA: 3.36
- Fastball: 99.6 mph avg, 2,313 rpm spin rate
- Whiff rate: 40.6%
- Average against: .206
- Exit velocity allowed: 89 mph
- Barrel rate allowed: 9.2%
How He Ranks League-Wide
- xERA: 80th percentile
- Strikeout rate (K%): 99th percentile — elite
- Whiff rate: 100th percentile — elite
- Fastball velocity: 99th percentile — elite
- xwOBA against: 80th percentile
The arm is still there. The percentiles don’t lie. What’s missing is the finish — and right now, nobody in MLB has let more saves slip away than Andrés Muñoz.
