Los Angeles Dodgers: Hyun-Jin Ryu’s inopportune slump

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hyun-Jin Ry had been the NL Cy Young favorite for most of this season, but a recent slump could be hurting his chances.

For most of 2019, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu has dominated on the mound and has set himself up as the clear favorite for NL Cy Young.

But he’s hit a snag in the month of August, going 1-3 with a 7.48 ERA in four starts. Going into the month of August, Ryu was riding a 1.53 ERA and 11-2 record in 21 starts for the Dodgers.

He took his first decision of the month when he shut out the Diamondbacks in seven innings of work with four strikeouts, five hits allowed, a walk, 13 ground ball outs, and just 91 pitches thrown.

But then came a stretch of three games where he faltered as bad as he has all season.

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August 17th against the Braves, he allowed four earned runs on four hits with two home runs in just 5.2 innings of work to earn his third loss of the year.

August 23rd against the Yankees, seven earned runs on seven hits with three home runs allowed in just 4.1 innings of work.

Finally, August 29th against the Diamondbacks again, another seven earned runs allowed on seven hits in 4.2 innings.

Needless to say, it’s been a nightmare three games for the NL CY Young frontrunner. Ryu now sits at 12-5 on the year with a 2.45 ERA and 1.06 WHIP.

All season long, Ryu has been able to pitch to contact and rack up ground balls as well as any other pitcher in the league.

Where he seemed to have tailed off in that three-game stretch was in his location misses. This whole season, Ryu has worked exclusively outside to right-handers and has rarely missed over the middle of the plate, which is why he came into that August 17th Braves game only having allowed 10 home runs this year.

Looking at some tape and studying his game charts on FanGraphs, we can see he was missing over the middle of the plate more often in those three games than he did all season.

This is a guy who’s 5th in ground ball out thrown this year and has a 49.8 ground ball percentage. He’s never going to be a high-strikeouts guy, nor will he blow you away with velocity.

When he’s on, he’s peppering righties middle-out and making them chase to ground out to the right side of the infield. When he’s off, he can be knocked around a bit, especially when he’s missing over the middle of the plate.

I think he still wins the Cy Young if the season finished today, but if he continues to tail off on his location, he’s going to have a rough end to the season and possibly postseason.

I hope he’s not tiring out.