Ryu Hyun-jin (37), the “Monster Who Came Back,” has finally reached 100 career wins in the KBO after a series of twists and turns.
Ryu pitched six innings of two-hit ball with seven strikeouts and one walk against two runs (one earned) in the top of the seventh inning against SSG Landers in the KBO Baseball World Series 2024 at the Daejeon Hanwha Life Eagles Park on Tuesday, leaving the mound with a 4-2 lead.
Hanwha exploded at the plate late in the game and went on to win 8-2. Ryu improved to 2-0 on the season and 100 wins (55) in his KBO career.
Ryu made his KBO debut in 2006 and went on to win 98 games (52 losses) for Hanwha until 2012. He then moved on to Major League Baseball (MLB), where he won 78 games (48 losses) before returning to the KBO this season and adding two more wins to reach 100 wins in the KBO. Combining his wins in the KBO and MLB, he has 178 career wins.
The KBO’s all-time wins leader is Song Jin-woo, the current manager of the Wonston Semi-Pro Baseball Organization, with 210 wins. Yang Hyun-jong of the KIA Tigers is second with 170 wins. Ryu became the 33rd pitcher in the KBO to reach 100 career wins.
Ryu threw 52 fastballs, 20 changeups, 18 curves, and 13 cut fastballs on the day. His fastball topped out at 149 mph and his average velocity was 145 mph. His ERA dropped from 5.91 to 5.21 with the win.
Ryu got out of the first inning unscathed, but a combination of errors by second baseman Lee Do-yoon in the top of the second put him in trouble. With runners on second and third, Park Ji-hwan’s hard-hit grounder hit Ryu’s left foot and deflected into an infield single, giving up the first run.
However, in the third inning, Hanwha’s bats started to come alive. In the bottom of the inning, they took advantage of SSG starter Lee Ki-soon’s poor pitching to load the bases with three 안전놀이터 singles. Noh Si-hwan then hit a grand slam home run to left field to make it a 4-1 game.
After giving up two hits in the top of the fourth, Ryu gave up another run on Lee Ji-young’s sacrifice fly to center field with runners on first and third. But in the top of the fifth, with runners on first and second and one out, he induced a double play that sent Heredia to third, second and first.
In the top of the sixth, Ryu induced back-to-back grounders to second base by Park Sung-han and Ko Myung-joon, and then struck out Lee Ji-young at third base to end the inning for the first triple play of the day.
Ryu threw over 100 pitches on the day, reaching 103. It was the first time Ryu had thrown more than 100 pitches in a live game since Aug. 22, 2021, against Detroit while with Toronto in the MLB. He hadn’t thrown more than 100 pitches since returning to the mound in 2023 after undergoing elbow surgery in 2022.
After Ryu left the mound, the Hanwha bats stepped up. They scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to secure the win for Ryu.
On this day, Ryu faced Shin-Soo Choo (SSG Rangers), who he faced in the MLB, in his first two-hitter in the KBO League. It had been 3929 days since July 28, 2013, when Ryu and Shin-soo Choo faced off 토토사이트 against each other. Ryu, then with the Los Angeles Dodgers, held Shin-Soo Choo, then with the Cincinnati Reds, to two hits and one walk.
Shin-Soo Choo went 2-for-3 with a walk in the reunion, which took place nearly 11 years later. In the top of the first inning, Ryu induced a wild swing with an outside fastball for a strikeout.
But in his second at-bat of the inning, Choo Shin-soo stole a base hit to left. In the top of the fifth inning, when Hanwha took a 4-2 lead, Choo Shin-soo again proved his dominance with a double to left.