Hyun-jin Ryu stays in control against Rockies

LOS ANGELES -- Hyun-jin Ryu continued a trend on Monday night in his win over the Rockies at Dodger Stadium. He allowed only one run on three hits in his six innings to pick up his eighth win of the year, but also had just one walk.

Ryu has walked zero or one batter in eight of his 13 starts this season. In those starts he is 7-1 with a 2.37 ERA with a total of 45 strikeouts and just five walks in 49⅓ innings.

"Everything was working for him. This guy can pitch, it's every time out. He can locate, he has that cutter now. He has a little slider he's working on," manager Don Mattingly said. "Last year he was pretty much two pitches, now he's starting to add pitches to that repertoire. He's a handful. That guy can really pitch."

Catcher a A.J. Ellis also credited the cutter, a pitch Ryu has been working on a cutter during bullpen sessions and pregame work.

"He threw me some today in warm-ups and I said 'Let's put a new sign together' so we can have this as a new pitch during the game, and he executed very well," Ellis said.

Ryu struck out six Rockies in his six innings, reversing a downward trend against Colorado.

The first time Ryu faced the Rockies, on April 30, 2013, he was dazzling with a career-high 12 strikeouts in just six innings, allowing two runs on three hits. But after striking out 12 of his 23 batters faced that night, the Rockies scored nine runs in 25 hits in 15 innings over his next three starts against them, including nine total strikeouts in 73 batters faced.

"It's pretty impressive because he has seen this guy a bunch this year. This was his third time, second year facing them. They battled him really hard tonight, and that was the hottest team in the National League coming in here," said Ellis. "He had command of all of his pitches, and used both sides of the plate extremely well, especially to left-handers, keeping those guys off balance."

Up next

The Dodgers go for a second straight win on Tuesday, and try to clinch their first winning homestand of the year with Zack Greinke on the hill against Jhoulys Chacin for Colorado.