Ryu Hyun-jin, who has been embodying the “aesthetics of slowness” this season, will be looking for his third straight win.
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Hyun-jin Ryu will take the mound against the Cleveland Cavaliers on April 27 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hyun-jin Ryu, who has thrown 14 consecutive scoreless innings in his last three outings, starting with a no-hitter against Cleveland on Aug. 8, will look to pick up his third win of the season and fourth consecutive quality start when the teams meet for the first time in 190 days.
Toronto fell to the Baltimore Orioles 0-7 and 3-5 on April 24 and 25, respectively, despite using the team’s one-two punch of Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios, and slipped to fourth place in the American League Wild Card standings. A six-game homestand against Cleveland and the Washington Nationals will be crucial for Toronto to climb back into the American League Wild Card race. It goes without saying that the Jays will need a strong performance from Ryu, who has been pitching the best of the bunch lately.
Solid offensive support and shaky defense
Felix Hernandez, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2010 after pitching 249.2 innings in 34 games with a 2.27 ERA and 232 strikeouts, went just 13-12 with poor offensive support. Jacob deGrom (Texas Rangers), who won the National League Cy Young Award in 2018, went just 10-9 with a 1.70 ERA and 269 strikeouts. In baseball, no matter how good a pitcher is, they can’t win games on their own.
In that regard, Ryu has had a relatively easy time of it in his last two games, as he’s gotten some nice run support. In the home game against the Cubs on April 14, he gave up two runs in the first inning, but the offense bounced back with a five-run “big inning” in the bottom of the second and added three more in the fourth to take the pressure off his shoulders. With the run support, Ryu only needed 86 pitches in five innings to get off the mound.
Against the Cincinnati Reds on April 21, Toronto’s bats exploded at Great American Ball Park, a notoriously hitter-friendly ballpark. After taking the lead in the first inning, Toronto scored four runs in the second and four more in the fourth to pound Cincinnati’s hard-throwing prospect Hunter Green, who was making his return from injury on the day. Ryu, who had struck out seven batters through five innings, his most since returning from injury, turned the mound over to second baseman Hennessis Cabrera to start the sixth inning with a comfortable seven-run lead.
While the Toronto offense has provided solid run support, the defense has been shaky. Toronto gave up an early two runs against the Cubs on April 14 when first baseman Brandon Belt made an error on a grounder that flipped behind him. Against Cincinnati on the 21st, Toronto stranded two runners on base when three-time Gold Glove winner Matt Chapman’s throw to second base sailed into right-center field. It was a mistake that could have been quite embarrassing if the runners hadn’t gotten enough run support.
Relive the four-inning no-hitter from 19 days ago
Cleveland is in second place in the American League Central behind the Minnesota Twins this season, but their 60-68 record virtually eliminates them from contention in the fall. In particular, they’ve been a poor hitting team this year, ranking 13th in team runs scored (512) and last in team home runs (93) out of 15 American League clubs. Of course, you have to be wary of the power of Cleveland slugger Jose Ramirez, who hit 173 home runs and 546 RBIs in a six-year span from 2017 to last year.
Cleveland’s starter against Ryu, who will be looking for his third straight win in his fifth start of the season, is 24-year-old rookie Logan Allen, who was born in 1998. Allen, who made his big league debut on April 24 against the Miami Marlins, has started all 19 games this season, going 6-6 with a 3.31 ERA. He’s certainly a tricky pitcher, but he’s also one that Toronto’s lineup, which features a number of right-handed hitters with excellent power, can handle.스포츠토토
Hyun-jin Ryu last faced Cleveland on August 8th and shut down the Cleveland offense for four innings with no hits, one walk, and two strikeouts before leaving the game with a knee injury. If Ryu can bring back the good memories of his last outing and continue his seasoned performance on the mound, he will have a better chance of winning. If Ryu gets the win in Cleveland on April 27, it will be his first three-game winning streak since May 2021.
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