Hanwha Eagles Ryu Hyun-jin overcame the mid-game crisis and made a valuable victory.
Ryu started Game 14 of this season against the SSG Landers of the 2024 Shinhan SOL Bank KBO League at SSG Landers Field in Incheon on Wednesday, and led his team to a 7-1 win by allowing six hits, one strikeout and one run during six ⅓ innings. He pitched 92 pitches in the order of fastballs (27), changeups (21), two-seam (15), cutter (10), and slider (eight). He posted a maximum speed of 149 km/h.
Before the game, Ryu Hyun-jin continued his sluggish trend with one win, two losses and an ERA of 5.45 in six games in the second half. On the 13th, when he took the mound, he did well against the LG Twins in Daejeon with two hits and two strikeouts in five innings, but failed to make a quality start (more than six innings and less than three earned runs) as he failed to fill six innings.
Ryu Hyun-jin seemed to start nervously in the bottom of the first inning when he gave up a hit to leadoff Choo Shin-soo, but he immediately drew a double play to Park Ji-hwan and filled two out-counts in an instant. Later, he struck out the follow-up hitter Choi Jeong, ending the inning without a run.
Ryu Hyun-jin struck out leadoff hitter Guillermo Herredia in the bottom of the second inning and allowed Han Yu-sum to hit to the right-center, but Lee Ji-young’s fly ball and Kim Sung-hyun’s ground ball ended the inning without allowing him to get on base.
Jonathan Peraza hit a solo shot at the top of the third inning, and Ryu gained strength. He allowed Jihoon Choi, Otaegon, and Choo Shin-soo to three outs in the bottom of the third inning, continuing their scoreless streak. In addition, the two teams widened the gap by six runs as the batters scored five runs in the top of the fourth inning alone. Taking the mound with a lighter mind, Ryu struck out Park Ji-hwan and Choi Jeong in the bottom of the fourth inning, and quickly pitched the inning with Herredia’s ground ball. 스포츠토토
The most important period for Ryu was in the bottom of the fifth inning. Before the game on Wednesday, Ryu had a batting average of 0.404 in the fifth inning, the highest in terms of the batting average in the first to sixth innings.
Ryu caught a ground ball by leadoff hitter Han Yu-sum and was in the scoring position when he got a double by Lee Ji-young, and gave up a timely RBI single to Jihoon Choi after Kim Sung-hyun’s fly ball. Jihoon Choi’s fly ball fell between shortstop and center field, leading to a run.
Oh Tae-gon’s hit and Choo Shin-soo’s walk caused the Dodgers to load the bases with two outs. However, Ryu cooked Park Ji-hwan by banking on his main weapon, change-up. After the first pitch, Ryu garnered two, three and four pitches to induce swing and miss, and secured strikeouts. All four of them were change-ups.
After meeting the requirements as a winning pitcher, Ryu caught Choi Jeong, Eredia and Han Yu-sum with three outs in the bottom of the sixth inning, and handed over the mound to Park Sang-won with one out and one out after leadoff hitter Lee Ji-young’s hit and Kim Sung-hyun’s strikeout in the bottom of the seventh inning. Hanwha fans gave a standing ovation to Ryu’s good pitching. “The team was able to win because Ryu Hyun-jin showed excellent pitching and blocked the opponent team’s batters,” Hanwha manager Kim Kyung-moon said after the game.
After the game, Ryu said, “Overall, all the ball control seems to have been done well. I threw as well as I could, regardless of whether I was in the top or bottom line. I think I went in a good direction as the batters scored a lot of points.”
“I think the weather was the coolest I’ve thrown since July. I usually changed a lot (because of the hot weather), but the weather was good enough that I only changed once in today’s game (on July 18),” he added.
With the victory, Hanwha has narrowed its gap versus fifth-ranked SSG to 2.5 games, to seventh. Ryu Hyun-jin is the core driving force behind Hanwha, which has been enjoying explosive momentum since it started to wear blue uniforms.
