Hyun Jin Ryu
Yesterday, Hyun-jin Ryu, the "Korean Monster" craped his 12th win as starter of the season in a game with the San Francisco Giants at the AT & T Park. The Los Angeles Dodgers' starting trio, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, and Hyun-jin Ryu led their ball club to take this week's entire series with the Giants, taking the lead back in the National League Western division.
The Giants scored the first runs and were in the lead for most of the game. However, the Dodgers batters including Gordon and Juan Uribe managed to score 4 runs in total while the Giants only scored 3. Ryu pitched 6 innings and earned 3 runs. Although his ERA increased a little bit, the Dodgers bullpen was able to secure his victory, not allowing the Giants to bat in any more runs. Ryu even struck out seven batters.
Ryu's opponent and starter for the Giants was Jake Peavie, who in the past including earlier this season showed great confidence against the Dodgers and his numbers seemed to prove it. Today however, Ryu was able to keep the Giants' starting lineup down with his newly found weapon, his slider.
In an interview with the commentary, Clayton Kershaw talked about a deal he made with the Korean pitcher. He shared how Ryu had learned how to pitch a slider, or more like Kershaw's signature slider. It has been reported that after a talk with Kershaw, Ryu had changed his grip when pitching his slider and curve ball. Kershaw even added that in return, Ryu promised to help him pitch a changeup.
Before he got his visa approved, Ryu was known for his changeup which is the weapon that got him his ticket to Los Angeles. However, since last season, analysts reported that that of all of his pitches, the proportion of his curve balls have increased form only 9.5 percent to 12.5 percent. He pitched the slider even more often, increasing the proportion from a mere 12.3 percent to 19.9 percent.
The commentary and many sports experts were shocked at how a pitcher could learn to pitch a new ball so quickly.
Many Korean baseball fans are interested in whether Ryu will be able to break Chan Ho Park's record of the most wins in a season out of all Korean pitchers (18 wins) or even the Asian record by Taiwanese pitcher Chien Ming Wang (19 wins). Ryu has around 20 games left to start and experts believe he will be able to secure at least 5 to 6 wins.
Other Asian pitchers are also breaking expectations this season. Hisashi Iwakuma (Seattle Mariners) has 12 wins, and Yu Darvish (Texas Rangers) has 9 wins with a 2 point ERA. Yankees rookie Tanaka also has 12 wins but is currently recovering from injury and is out of the starting rotation.
