Osuna earns save in hostile atmosphere
Closer in midst of legal trouble in Toronto; win cuts magic number to clinch West to 2
TORONTO — Between each of his 20 pitches, each bend of his knee and deep breath on the mound on which he made his name, boos rained down on Roberto Osuna, the troubled closer who returned to Rogers Centre with far more serious circumstances than the division race he will aid the Astros in completing.
Tuesday morning, in a downtown courtroom less than 2 miles from this ballpark, another hearing is scheduled in Osuna’s domestic violence case. It is unknown whether he will attend. On the advice of his legal counsel, Osuna did not speak to reporters before or after Monday’s 5-3 Astros win, his first game in Toronto since July’s debatable trade with the Blue Jays.
A.J. Hinch was instead peppered with inquiries. The manager was stoic, focusing on Osuna’s baseball obligations and how his new clubhouse has received him.
“I think he wanted a save,” the manager said. “He wanted the ball like he always does.”
Hinch obliged. Osuna arrived in the ninth inning of a two-run game. He allowed a meaningless single to Richard Urena. Yangervis Solarte flew out to Yuli Gurriel to end the win, sending Osuna’s arms into the air in celebration while the crowd jeered.
Osuna’s was the last of four scoreless innings from the Astros’ vaunted bullpen. The performance whittled Houston’s magic number to clinch the American League West to two, where it stayed with Oakland’s late 7-3 win at Seattle.
“It’s getting down to that point, but we still have business to take care of,” reliever Ryan Pressly said. “We’re just going to go about our own interests, hitting and pitching like we’re supposed to, and the chips will fall where they may.”
The Astros deployed five relievers to cover four innings. Pressly was the only one to escape an inning without a baserunner. He has tallied 19 consecutive scoreless appearances. Monday, he threw the eighth inning in favor of the scuffling Hector Rondon. Osuna protected the ninth, allowing an early ambush of Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada to hold serve.
A shell of the man who earned an All-Star selection two seasons ago, Estrada entered with 13 losses in 27 starts. Just two American League starting pitchers with at least 130 innings possessed a higher ERA than his 5.57 clip.
George Springer struck Estrada’s first pitch to the gap in left-center field for a double. Yuli Gurriel lofted a single to center field that scored Springer, putting the Astros ahead before the Blue Jays could swing a bat.
“George sets the tone and hits a bullet right out of the chute, and that kickstarted us to get up there and get a good pitch to hit,” Hinch said. “You have to pick some pitch to go after. (Estrada) changes speeds quite a lot. He’s a veteran guy and doesn’t concede the at-bat. But if you can get a good pitch to hit, then our guys put some good swings on him.”
Teeing off on Estrada
Estrada’s repertoire resides up in the strike zone. His fly-ball rate is the highest of any AL starting pitcher by almost 4 percent.
Home runs often accelerate his undoing. Monday matched the script. Brian McCann and Josh Reddick hit back-to-back solo shots to open the second inning.
McCann had not hit a homer since arthroscopic knee surgery sidelined him for two months. His first since then was prodigious, a towering 388-foot blast that hit off the ribbon scoreboard separating the second and third deck in right field. Reddick’s blast barely cleared the same fence.
Alex Bregman provided an RBI double in the third. Jose Altuve dumped an insurance RBI single into center field during the ninth, affording Osuna some cushion for his completion of the bullpen’s mastery.
“As a starter, I cherish them as much as the other starters do, and we know we wouldn’t be here without those guys,” Dallas Keuchel said.
Keuchel (12-11) yielded seven hits in five innings. The Jays placed a man aboard in all but one frame he worked. Double plays extracted him from predicaments in the first and second innings.
Two changeups muddied the fourth. One sailed away from Justin Smoak, who blooped an excuse-me double the other way, inside the right-field line. Smoak hit the baseball at 66 mph, the sort of frustrating, fisted base hit that often arrives in a Keuchel start.
Kevin Pillar needed no such luck. Keuchel left a “terrible” first-pitch changeup over the middle. Pillar pummeled it into the second deck of the left-field bleachers 388 feet away, halving the lead to two.
In Keuchel’s final frame, the first four men he faced reached base. Eight-hole hitter Luke Maile scalded a single with a 106 mph exit velocity. Solarte hit one at 107 mph, scoring Maile.
Solarte’s single kept the bases loaded. Joe Smith loosened in the Astros’ bullpen. Keuchel drew a deep breath and concluded his outing.
With a full count against Smoak, he dotted a twoseamer just low enough to appease plate umpire Kerwin Danley. Randal Grichuk bounced a fielder’s choice to J.D. Davis, who forced out a run at home. Only Pillar remained.
Keuchel’s strategy
Keuchel opted for fastballs only.
“I figured command of my fastball had been pretty good. I hadn’t really shown him many cutters in,” said Keuchel, who threw seven fastballs, all in excess of 88 mph. “That was the attack mode. Just show him the two-seam angle and the cutter. Had some pretty good late movement on both.”
Pillar spoiled two twostrike offerings. Keuchel missed away with a 90.5 mph two-seamer — his second-hardest pitch of the night. It preceded his most crucial.
Keuchel came back inside with a four-seamer. Pillar waved over it. Keuchel exhaled and ambled from the mound with a result his bullpen would protect.