South Korean pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin wrapped up his 2019 regular season with the lowest Earned Run Average in Major League Baseball over the weekend.
So with this under his belt,... will Ryu be able to cap it off with the renowned Cy Young Award?
Our Won Jung-hwan tells us more.
Two-point-three-two. That's Korean Monster Ryu Hyun-jin's Earned Run Average for the 2019 MLB regular season.
The figure is the average number of runs Ryu has given up per nine innings pitched,… and it's the lowest among all the pitchers in the MLB this year.
He is the first Asian pitcher to achieve such a feat.
It adds to a long list of achievements for the 32-year-old LA Dodgers pitcher this year.
He won the National League Pitcher of the Month award for May and made his first career appearance in the MLB All-Star Game in July,… but the question is,... will he be able to put an icing on the cake and win the Cy Young Award?
Ryu has humbly said he honestly thinks Jacob deGrom from the New York Mets deserves the renowned Award, which is given to the league's best pitchers each year.
But the stats suggest that both players are evenly matched.
First, the ERAs,… Ryu, the number one in the league, is point-one ahead of deGrom.
But if we look at the played innings,… we can see deGrom played more. He has played in 32 games and thrown 204 innings,… while Ryu only stepped up to the plate for 182-point-2 innings, playing three games less than deGrom.
Ryu edges it on wins, with 3 more victories than deGrom, who only won 11 games this year with the Mets.
Finally, the strikeouts. This particular figure is why Ryu thinks deGrom deserves the Cy Young Award. deGrom has 255 strikeouts. That's 92 more than Ryu.
For most of the season, Ryu was a runaway favorite for the Cy Young Award. He made 17 starts in the first half, pitching to a ridiculous 1-point-seven-three ERA. But his numbers trailed off in the second half,… and his ERA increased to 2-point-three-two.
While Ryu still has the best ERA this year,... some say it may not be enough to make him the first Asian-born pitcher to win the Cy Young Award as deGrom also had an impressive finish to the season and ranks ahead of Ryu in several statistics.
But whoever wins the Cy Young award, there is no doubt that fans will remember Ryu Hyun-jin's dazzling 2019 Season.
Won Jung-hwan, Arirang News.