Ryu Hyun-jin suffers second loss of the season

The Boston Red Sox, which currently rank No.1 in batting average, have turned out to be a big hurdle for Ryu Hyun-jin.

Ryu Hyun-jin suffered his second loss of the season. In a road game against the Boston Red Sox held at Fenway Park in Boston on Tuesday, Ryu gave up eight hits, four runs, and stroke out two in five innings. With Tuesday’s 4-2 defeat, the Blue Jays lost their third straight match.

The Red Sox stacked their batting orders with right-handed hitters to take advantage against Ryu. The South Korean southpaw cruised through the first three innings, although he allowed a leadoff double with no outs in the bottom second inning and a leadoff base hit with no outs in the bottom third inning.

However, his mistake came in the fourth inning, when the team was leading 1-0. After allowing hits to Christian Arroyo and J.D. Martinez with no outs, Ryu gave up a three-run homer to Xander Bogaerts that flew 124 meters out to left-center. The Red Sox’s Marwin Gonzalez and Bobby Dalbec added a double and a triple, respectively, to score another point. The Red Sox hit for the cycle against Ryu in the fourth inning, befitting their status as the leader in batting average (0.287). Ryu’s ERA jumped to 3.00 from 1.89 after the game.

Ryu particularly suffered from his low velocity pitches. His fastball was clocked at 91.4 mph and the average velocity stood at 88.7 mph. “The one signal of trouble was that Ryu’s fastball velocity was down,” wrote the MLB.com. “Ryu is no flamethrower and typically finds great success sitting around 90 mph.”

After the game, Ryu said in an interview that he intended to pitch low but the ball went higher than he had expected, adding he pitched the ball successfully to the corner but the hitter did well. Red Sox starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez picked up his third win of the season, allowing two runs on three hits while striking out six during six innings.


Hong-Gu Kang windup@donga.com