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Monday, May 20, 2019

Blog Kiosk: 5/20/2019 - Dodgers Links - Some Odds and Ends


Hyun-Jin Ryu is pitching every bit like the 'Monster' he was billed to be when he first came from Korea to become a Dodger in 2013. He is currently riding a 31 scoreless consecutive innings streak after throwing seven innings of five-hit ball to win his sixth game of the year against the Reds, 8-3. Overall, he is sporting league leading statistics in ERA (1.52), Whip (0.742) and strikeout to walk ratio (14.75). That last stat is particularly impressive. In 59 innings pitched this season he has walked only four.... FOUR! Per Jeff Wallner at MLB.com:
“He’s locked in right now with everything, his entire pitch mix,” said Roberts. “It’s fun to watch a player in a zone like that. I felt like he was in complete control.”
Photo above via Ryan Meyer/MLB.com at Dodger Insider. Go here to check out more pics from yesterdays game. Below are more links to check out:
Bellinger being fast isn't exactly a secret. He steals. He's made his first base-to-outfield transition more than capably. But his slugging still makes it too easy to overlook just how fast he is.
Bellinger isn't just fast for a slugger. He's one of the fastest players in the Majors. His sprint speed this season -- that's his average top speed on max-effort runs -- is 29.2 feet per second. The MLB average is 27 ft/sec. Bellinger ranks among baseball's Top 20 fastest runners by sprint speed, out of nearly 400 qualifiers, and he's the Dodgers' fastest player.
The biggest change Ryu made in advance of 2018 was committing a significant share of his pitch mix to his cutter. He debuted the pitch in 2017, throwing it 17.8% of the time. The cutter’s usage rate rose to 24.5% last year, and sits at 21.2% this season. At the same time, he ditched his slider and cut back on his four-seam fastball, going from a 52.4% usage rate in 2014, his last season before losing two full years to a shoulder injury, to 36.9% in 2017, and 29.7% this year.

  • Per Merisa Jensen at MiLB.com -- "Cal notes: Downs finds niche with Quakes: Jeter namesake heating up in first season in Dodgers system."
Downs likes a challenge, but he also tries to remember that he's playing a game and it's supposed to be fun, which is how he approaches things.
"Just working hard in pregame and doing all that stuff and then going to the game and just having fun and letting all of that stuff take care of itself," he said. "I try not to put too much pressure on myself and try not to do too much. I feel like when you do that, you just start pressing and things don't really work out as planned. So just go out and have fun and enjoy the game.

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