by Cary Osborne
Two starts into River Ryan’s Major League career have revealed how he deals with stress.
The stress of a Major League debut didn’t shake him.
And the stress of his first Major League road start against a first-place team, with the Dodgers looking to salvage the series with a win, wasn’t daunting.
Ryan pitched into the sixth inning for the second straight time — something he hadn’t done in his professional career until his Major League debut. He no-hit the Houston Astros through four innings. And he gave the Dodgers both enough length and enough of a shutdown to put them in a position to win.
They did that, beating the Astros 6–2 on Sunday at Minute Maid Park and taking the final game of the three-game series after dropping the first two.
Ryan demonstrated his calm through 5 2/3 innings, but two innings stand out.
The first: The rookie walked Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman to begin the game. He retired All-Star slugger Yordán Alvarez on a flyout then induced a double-play grounder off the bat of Yainer Diaz.
The fifth: After allowing a leadoff double to Jon Singleton, Ryan left him stranded in scoring position, including a strikeout of right fielder Joey Loperfido on a slider to end the inning.
The Astros were 0-for-7 against Ryan with runners in scoring position and opponents are now 0-for-9 against him with RISP in two games. He has allowed one earned run over 11 Major League innings.
Ryan’s command was not there early, but from the second inning on, he was on, particularly on the edges.
His final line shows the one run allowed — that crossed the plate after he was removed in favor of Alex Vesia. Vesia allowed a two-run homer to the first batter he faced.
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Ryan’s 91 pitches were a professional career high.
“It was good to see him use that four-pitch mix effectively,” said manager Dave Roberts. “We pushed him. I don’t think he’s gone more than 74 pitches in his professional career. … I felt he left it out there. He gave us all he had. And (he’ll get) a couple of extra days on the back end. So again really excited for him.”
Gavin Lux Stays Hot
The reigning National League Player of the Week is making the push to repeat.
Lux reached base four times. He hit a two-run home run in the top of the sixth inning to give the Dodgers a 3–0 lead at the time. He also walked three times and scored two runs.
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Lux went 8-for-18 this week with three extra-base hits and five RBI. He batted .444/.541/.684/1.255.
The Dodger second baseman is batting .520/.600/1.040/1.640 over his last nine games.
He has gone from batting .211 with a .555 OPS on July 19 to a .238 average and .654 OPS now.
“Just taking more chances,” Lux explained the turnaround. “I think you get a good count, you try to stick to your plan and put a good swing on it. But just take more chances early, like the first two strikes are mine to try to do damage on, and then after that it’s just two strikes you try to fight.”
More Dodger Offense
James Outman (his fourth) and Teoscar Hernández (his 22nd) also homered in the game.
Outman’s homer off Houston starter Spencer Arrighetti in the fifth inning was the Dodgers’ first hit. It was also Outman’s first homer since May 6.
Other Happenings
The Dodgers (63–44) picked up a game on second-place San Diego and now lead the NL West by 6 1/2 games again.
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River Ryan demonstrates how to deal with pressure in MLB victory №1 was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.