Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
A really good outing by Hyun-Jin Ryu went for naught as the Dodger bats were virtually silent in Monday’s 2-1 loss against the Giants in San Francisco.
In the first inning, Brandon Belt walked and was advanced to second base on a ground out. With two outs, Buster Posey singled to right field. The Giants sent Belt and Yasiel Puig did this:
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/856697838985650176
And here it is, legally, before Chad’s is inevitably deleted by MLB:
https://twitter.com/Dodgers/status/856704549062680576
The Giants got on the board in the second inning after a Brandon Crawford double, a Christian Arroyo (making MLB debut) ground out and a Joe Panik sacrifice fly.
The Dodger offense was stymied by Matt Cain, who channeled his inner 2011 self. He didn’t allow a run in six innings of work and just two hits and issued one walk. Where’s Andre Ethier when ya need him? Oh, right.
Ryu had struggled this season coming into tonight. The most encouraging thing was the fact he looked more like his old self (still not there; might not ever be). The stuff was good, as he threw his changeup a lot. His curveball was biting and he even hit 91-92 MPH consistently with his fastball. The command of his fastball wasn’t the best, but his changeup and curveball command each were solid. His command, on the whole, improved as he got later into his outing.
He got into a little trouble in the sixth inning. After a 1-out single by Belt, he got Eduardo Nunez to line out to Andrew Toles in left field. It was a hard-hit ball, but it resulted in an out. That brought up Posey. Posey worked the count to 3-2 and Ryu threw a curveball that almost hit the ground. Posey golfed it down the left field line for a 74 MPH fly ball single. Ryu was sitting at 90 pitches with Crawford coming up with runners on the corners. Dave Roberts came out to the mound but didn’t remove Ryu. He left him in and Ryu went 3-2 to Crawford before getting him to pop out harmlessly to end his outing.
Ryu’s line on the night: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R/ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 96 pitches, 61 strikes, 7/1 GO/AO. It was easily his best outing of the season and, as stated above, the most encouraging to date. Here’s hoping he can get into a groove and start putting together solid outings.
Adam Liberatore, making his season debut, began the seventh inning and could get just one out and allowed two base runners before giving way Josh Fields. He got Conor Gillaspie to foul out to Adrian Gonzalez for the second out. After getting ahead of Hunter Pence 0-2, Fields tried to climb the ladder and failed. Pence hit a single to center field to give ‘Frisco a 2-0 lead. He recovered to strike out Belt.
Dodgers finally get something going in the eighth inning. Chase Utley walked against Derek Law and Enrique Hernandez singled, not unlike Posey did in the sixth inning. Chris Taylor pinch hit and hit a 101 MPH rocket to third base. Arroyo made a great stop and tried to start a 5-4-3 double play. But, the Giants couldn’t get the speedy Taylor at first, giving the Dodgers their first run of the night. After a Toles strikeout (man, he is struggling), Taylor tried to steal second on the first pitch to Corey Seager. It took a strong throw and quick tag from Crawford to get Taylor, but they did. One could question the tactic of sending Taylor with the team’s best home run threat at the plate, but I didn’t have a problem with it. Taylor is a plus-runner and just got beat by Posey/Crawford.
Sergio Romo appeared against his former team. He got a standing ovation earlier in the game and pitched a scoreless eighth inning for LA.
Mark Melancon pitched the ninth and allowed a flare single to Justin Turner. After moving to second on a wild pitch, Gonzalez worked the count to 3-1. He got a fastball right down the middle, and Turner thought Gonzalez was going to crush it. However, he swung through it, Turner was too far off second base and Posey threw him out. Walk-off TOOTBLAN, because of course.
Could you imagine if that were Puig?
— Dustin Nosler (@DustinNosler) April 25, 2017
He’d be DFA’d already.
On the whole, it was your typical Dodger-Giant game. Get ready for three more games of this.
The Dodgers fall to 9-11 on the season while the Giants improve to 7-13. Clayton Kershaw (2.54 ERA, 2.69 FIP) gets the ball tomorrow night against Ty Blach (4.76 ERA, 4.31 FIP), who is starting in place of the injured dirt bike rider. It’s also his first start of the season. First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Pacific time.
