One funny thing about baseball fandom, and I do not exempt myself from this,

is that we don't think about the bullpen until opening day.

Come on, admit it you don't.

Good morning to you.

Good Tuesday morning.

I'm Dan Kovach of D.K. Pitsburg Sports.

This is Daily Shot of Pirates

presented by our great friends at the North Shore Tavern.

It comes your way bright and early every weekday.

If you're into football and or hockey,

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in the same place that you found

this. Dennis Santana is the only real name you might need to know heading into this offseason

as it relates to the bullpen. Santana, of course, finished the 2025 season as the Pirates closer fared quite well across 70 appearances.

16 saves and 19 opportunities.

That's a little bit of a cold number to try to assess.

More impressively, 0.87 whip, 179 opponents batting average, 60 strikeouts,

17 walks over 70 in the third innings. Good pitcher. He's 29 years old, so he's obviously

got a fair amount of baseball left in him theoretically. Is he some big-time lights on

thumping the ACDC level closer? I don't know. I don't know. Nobody can know that. Nice relief pitcher

now who has some back-end results to his resume.

And that, my friends, is close to the end of the discussion.

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