Perhaps the biggest surprise for the Los Angeles Dodgers so far this season has been the string of impressive showings from fifth starter Hyun-Jin Ryu. He went into Friday night’s outing against the San Francisco Giants with a 3-0 record.
It was accompanied by a 1.99 ERA, 2.69 FIP and 0.88 WHIP, with an impressive 27 strikeouts in 22.2 innings pitched. Ryu had another solid outing against the Giants, although the bullpen could not hold the lead and the Dodgers wound up losing their third straight game.
In 5.2 innings of work, Ryu gave up just two solo home runs to Evan Longoria and Brandon Crawford while striking out seven without allowing a walk. Both homers came in the second inning.
He attributed those home runs to poorly placed curveballs, as seen on SportsNet LA:
“The two homers I gave up today both came off misplaced curveballs, they were both misplaced. They did a good job capitalizing, besides that my command has been working and I think that’s the reason why I’ve been having so much success as I always noticed that command seems to be the most important thing.”
Ryu went on to elaborate on his command, saying that he felt he had all of his pitches working:
“Everything was good overall, fastball was good, as the game progressed, curveball and cutter were also effective pitches.”
After allowing the home runs, Ryu retired nine in a row, and 10 of 11, including five by strikeout, through the fifth inning. The lone hit during that stretch was Gorkys Hernandez’s two-out bunt single in the bottom of the fifth.
Ryu then allowed a two-out infield single to Buster Posey in the sixth, marking the end of his night. He was checked on after being struck by the comebacker but was not lifted due to injury.
The Dodgers have all sorts of problems at the moment after dropping to 11-13 on the season, but Ryu is not one of them. After a rough 2018 debut, he has struck out at least seven in each of last four starts.
After missing all but one start in the 2015 and 2016 seasons, it appears Ryu is back to his pre-injury form, and perhaps even better which is a nice surprise for the Dodgers.
