Hyun-jin Ryu achieves his first QS in 480 days, but his batting silence leads to a loss to Texas
Ryu Hyun-jin (36, Toronto Blue Jays) earned his first quality start of the season against the hard-hitting Texas Rangers (QS – six or more innings pitched and three or fewer earned runs allowed), but a silent offense cost him the game.
Ryu was removed from the game in the top of the seventh inning with the score 0-3 after allowing three runs (three earned) on five hits (one home run) with one walk and five strikeouts in six innings of Major League Baseball’s 2023 Baseball home game against Texas at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Wednesday (July 13).
Toronto struggled against veteran starter Max Scherzer and eventually fell to 3-6, while Ryu suffered his third loss of the season (3-3).
Ryu’s season ERA increased from 2.65 to 2.93.
It’s been 480 days since Ryu achieved a QS since May 21 last year, when he threw six scoreless innings against the Cincinnati Reds.
Ryu returned to the big leagues last month after undergoing left elbow ligament reconstruction surgery (Tommy John surgery) in June of last year, and has pitched five innings or less in each of his last seven starts.
On this day, Ryu was dominant early in the game with his command.
He gave up a single in the top of the first, but retired the next three Texas hitters – Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, and Mitch Garber – to get out of the jam.
The second inning ended with a triple play. Leadoff hitter Jonah Heim grounded out to third, and Nathaniel Law flied out to left field.
Ezequiel Duran broke up the at-bat with a slow curveball and induced a fly ball to center field.
The third inning was perfect. He showed a slow curveball and followed it up with a “knife-edge” fastball on the edge of the strike zone to keep batters at bay.
Ryu struck out Leodis Taveras on a foul fly to first base and Jonathan Onelas on a grounder to short. Both used fastballs in the strike zone for strikes.
The next batter, Simeon, induced an infield grounder on a cut fastball in the outer strike zone.
The problem was the fourth inning. The Texas hitters came out firing on all cylinders.
Ryu gave up a leadoff single to Seager and a double to Robbie Grossman in the next at-bat.
The first pitch was a 137.9-kilometer cut fastball that Grossman smashed over the left field fence.
Ryu got the next batter, Macho Garber, to ground out to shortstop, but gave up another single up the middle to Haim. This time, he was hit by a fastball.
But Ryu was no longer shaken. He continued to make smart pitches to keep the bases loaded.
He got Roh to ground out to short on a slow curveball, and Duran induced an infield grounder with a curveball.
Trailing 2-0 in the fifth, he was perfect again. He retired three batters on nine pitches.
Taveras struck out looking on a fastball, and both Onelas and Simeon were hit by changeups.
The Toronto lineup was silenced by the opposing starter’s swooper.
With no support from the bats, Ryu made two more errors on defense in the top of the sixth.
First, he gave up a hard-hit double to leadoff hitter Seager. Right fielder George Springer raced to make a sliding catch but failed, allowing Seager to reach second base.
Ryu then gave up a single to right to Garber to put runners on first and third before giving up a sacrifice fly to right field to Heim for the third run. But he struck out the final batter, Roe, on a swinging strikeout.
Toronto added two more runs in the seventh inning, when Ryu was removed from the mound, as the bullpen faltered, and offered little resistance.
Ryu threw 82 pitches on the day. His fastball (25) topped out at 90.6 miles per hour (145.8 km/h) and averaged 88.9 miles per hour (143.1 km/h).
He also threw a variety of other pitches, including a changeup (18), cut fastball (18), curve (16), and sinking fastball (5).
With the loss, Toronto lost the second American League wild-card spot to Texas. The third wild card into the MLB postseason is up for grabs.
Texas’ starter, Scherzer, pitched a scoreless sixth inning before feeling ill and leaving the game.
Scherzer is a three-time Cy Young Award winner and one of the best pitchers of his generation. 온라인카지노 He is also the highest paid pitcher in MLB this season ($43.33 million).