Roberto Osuna gets a 2-inning save, Jays beat Rays

Blue Jays 8 Rays 5

Roberto Osuna is just amazing. What a great night for him. He came into the game with 2 on and no one out in the 8th, and struck out the side, around a walk that loaded the bases. Then, coming out for the 9th, he got a ground out and 2 strikeouts to close out the game. 2 innings pitched, 5 strikeouts, 1 walk he got the save. One we very much needed.

I thought Gibby made a great call in leaving him out there for 2 innings. He ought to be pitching 2 or 3 innings on occasion.

I didn't think that Drew Hutchison was going to get out of the second inning. I don't know what was said to Drew after the second inning, but what ever it was, it seemed to work. The first 2 innings Drew gave up 5 hits, 2 walks and a hit batter. Then he turned things around. He threw 26 pitches in the first inning, then 38 in the second inning. But then just 11 in the third and 14 in the fourth.

In all, he fought through 5 innings, allowed 9 hits, 2 walks, with 6 strikeouts. Amazingly, there was just 3 earned runs in there. He threw 109 pitches, just 64 strikes. The plate umpire did seem to be having a little trouble with the strike zone early but most of it was on Drew.

The nice part was that the offense was there. We scored:

• 1 in the second: Dioner Navarro led off with a double, moved to second on a wild pitch and scored on Chris Colabello's ground out.
• 1 in the third: Jose Reyes homered.
• 1 in the fourth: Navarro homered.
• 4 in the sixth: Jose Bautista homered. Edwin Encarnacion walked, Navarro singled. Colabello had an RBI double. Ezequiel Carrera an RBI single. And Colabello scored on a Danny Valencia ground out.
• 1 in the 8th: Carrera singled, went to third on a pick off attempt that went past the first baseman and scored on a Valencia single.

It was another great day for our offence. 11 hits, 2 walks, 3 home runs.

Navarro had a great day at the plate, 3 for 4, homer, double and his one out was crushed to center field. It took a great catch by Kevin Kiermaier on the track to keep us from the fun of watching Dioner try to leg out a triple for the cycle. We had 2 hits each from Colabello and Carerra. The only Jays not to hit were Encarnacion (and he did take a walk that helped us out) and Munenori Kawasaki.

Our bullpen? Well, they had their good moments and bad moments.

• Aaron Loup took over for Hutchison and started the 6th. He gave up a walk and a single and he was out. I kind of thought Gibby was quick with the hook.
• Todd Redmond came in, with the tying run at the plate, and got 3 quick outs, stranding the runners. Had his night ended there, it would have been a great success. Unfortunately, he started the seventh and gave up a home runs and a triple, that was about 2 feet from being a home run. But he righted things again, for a moment, getting 2 quick strikeouts. Then Rene Rivera hit a ground rule double and Redmond was out and
• Liam Hendriks was in to get a strikeout to end the inning. Of course, he gave up 2 singles, to start the eighth and he was out and Osuna was in. Osuna, as noted above, was terrific.

The Rays had 13 hits, 4 walks, with a home run, and yet only scored 5 runs.

Jays of the Day: Osuna (.203 WPA), Navarro (.275), Colabello (.159) and Bautista (.168).

Suckage: Hutchison (-.105).

Other moments of note:

• A ground ball got past Reyes that he really should have had, and it would have saved Hutchison some grief and maybe saved him from a suckage award. Reyes evened things out with his home run.
• Colabello took a throw off his hand, sliding into second base, trying to break up a double play. His hand was up high and the throw hit it (but sad to say the ball wasn't knocked off track, they got the double play). Colabello continued to play and hit a big double, but I wouldn't be surprised if he sits tomorrow. He made one pretty good catch in the outfield (and misplayed another ball later).
• Ray Asdrubal Cabrera was ejected after arguing about a strike three call. Early in the game, I thought that a Jay would go nuts about the strike zone and get thrown out, but. thankfully, the calls seemed to even out as the game when on.