Hyun-Jin Ryu blanked the San Diego Padres for seven innings, but the bullpen and defensive errors turned a one-run lead in the eighth inning to a 3-1 loss for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday night at Petco Park.
Ryu showed no signs of the toenail injury he suffered in his first start of the season against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Australia last week. The 26-year-old struck out seven batters and gave up no runs on only three hits and three walks through seven frames.
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The Dodgers held a 1-0 lead when manager Don Mattingly replaced Ryu with Brian Wilson, who gave up three runs. Rene Rivera sparked the comeback for the Padres with a solo homer to start the inning, followed by an error on a bunt and a hit by Chris Denorfia for two more runs.
“These kind of games happen,” Ryu said of the team’s loss despite his effort. “It’s part of the game. I know it’ll inspire us to try harder.”
Despite the loss, Mattingly praised Ryu who hasn’t given up a run in his first two starts of the season in 12 innings. The skipper was especially impressed how the southpaw mixed up the curveball and slider with his usual fastball and slider. He retired 13 straight batters from third to seventh inning.
“Hyun-Jin [Ryu] was, maybe, just about as good as we’ve seen him,” Mattingly said. “He used all his pitches. Maybe that wasn’t his first time, but he used his curveball, used his slider and obviously, his changeup and fastball were always at where he wanted it. He was really, really good.”
Ryu had to work himself out of a jam in the beginning, as the Padres put runners in scoring positions in each of the first two innings. He then started utilizing his slider and curveball at a significantly higher rate from the third inning and didn’t give up a single hit for the rest of the game.
Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said Ryu used spring training with pitching coach Rick Honeycutt to make minor tweaks to his curveball. Ellis remained tight lipped about specific changes Ryu made to his curveball, but revealed that he’s gripping the ball deeper and has changed his release point to add more deception.
“He’s worked really hard with his curveball,” Ellis said. “When he started throwing tonight in the game, immediately I could tell that the pitch was different from what he was throwing in the past. He’s a pitch maker.”
Ryu is expected to start for the Dodgers in their home opener against the San Francisco Giants on Friday.
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