"Osuna's our guy," Hinch said emphatically. "Osuna's our guy."
The Astros closer was asked to record the game's final four outs, entering with the tying run on base in the eighth inning. He struck out Willy Adames on three pitches to end that threat, but after the Astros scored a run to extend their lead to 3-0 in a long bottom of the eighth inning, Osuna ran into trouble. He allowed back-to-back singles with exit velocities below 80 MPH, and walked Ji-Man Choi to lead the bases. After Avisail Garcia grounded into a fielder's choice, brining in the Rays first run of the night, Osuna's night ended when he walked Brandon Lowe. Will Harris took over and ended the game by striking out Travis d'Arnaud and getting Kevin Kiermaier to ground out to first.
"He'll get the ball when he needs to get the ball and when we expect him to get the last three outs," Hinch said. "There's always a consideration for just putting the guys out there against the match-ups. But I believe in Osuna, and I believe he's the best matchup most of the time."
Almost half of the 27 pitches Osuna threw Saturday night were sliders, a pitch he only used 18 percent of the time during the regular season.
“There’s sometimes you really don’t know what you’re doing out there & that’s what happened to me," Osuna explained. "That’s not me. I usually use my fastball, my cutter. I didn’t use it much tonight. I’m very disappointed with myself tonight.”
Osuna said he appreciates the confidence his manager showed in him.
"He actually texted me a few minutes ago," Osuna said. That means a lot to me.”
Despite his ninth inning failure, the strikeout of Yandy Diaz to end the eighth turned out to be just as important, and as Harris explained, four out saves aren't easy.
"I've closed before," he said. "Four out saves are dificult. Everybody knows that. There's been a few guys that have been really good at it over the years, and those guys are in the Hall of Fame, so it's a hard thing, and (Osuna) made really good pitches. It wasn't anything like he got hit hard or anything like that, so that's baseball, man."