‘ Iron and steel’ character helps reliever Osuna in closer role
TORONTO Mark Lowe remembers watching Roberto Osuna pitch when they were opponents. Young guy, cool under pressure, blazing fastball. Impressive, he remembers thinking.
“I had no idea he was only 20 years old,” Lowe said.
Now that they’ve been Toronto Blue Jays teammates for a week, Lowe is even more impressed.
“You get to know him and it’s like, yeah, that’s why he’s so good, because he’s really laid- back and confident in what he does,” said Lowe, who joined the Jays in a July 31 trade with Seattle.
Osuna tells good stories, too, Lowe said. He talks about pitching at 16 in the Mexican League, as did his father and uncle before him.
“He hardened his soul there doing that,” said Jays bullpen coach Dane Johnson.
And now, barely out of his teens, Osuna is the Jays’ closer. Earlier in the season he was the most reliable reliever in an unreliable bullpen. Now he is the anchor of one of the league’s better bullpens, the man manager John Gibbons calls upon when the Jays carry a precarious lead into the ninth inning.
Entering Friday’s game, he had pitched in 46 games, finished 20 and posted eight saves.
Those numbers may not seem particularly impressive at first glance. But Osuna has been closing only since late June and had blown only one save opportunity. He has a 2.22 ERA, a WHIP of 0.925 and 53 strikeouts in 48 ⅔ innings.
Lots of folks around the league probably have no idea he is only
20. They just see the fastball at 95 to 97, the change- up at 82, the slider at 88, and the uncommon poise on the mound.
“He showed that early in the minor leagues when we got him when he was 16,” said Johnson, who came to know Osuna well as the Jays’ minor- league pitching co- ordinator. “He wasn’t scared of anybody. Went in there and threw strikes. What you see is what you get right now. He’s been iron and steel as far as his character goes on the mound.”
The Jays continue to talk about Osuna blossoming into a first- rate big- league starter, and one might assume Osuna supports that notion. He says he does not.
“If I’m a setup man or just a reliever, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with that, because I like to pitch
almost every day,” he said.
“I don’t want to be a starter and pitch every fifth day.”
Johnson says the coaching staff takes pains to avoid overworking Osuna, who is on pace to pitch roughly 70 games and 70 innings. Last year, he pitched only 23 innings in the minors because he was coming back from Tommy John surgery.
After the Jays signed him out of his native Mexico, he advanced through three minor- league levels.
The team later invited Osuna to big- league camp in February to give him a taste of major- league ball. They expected him to soak up the ambience, pick up a few pointers and go back to the minors. Instead, he pitched in nine exhibition games, logged a 2.19 ERA and made the team.