The Toronto Blue Jays of the U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB) will face off against the Texas Rangers with a chance to advance to the postseason at stake. In an important matchup, Ryu Hyun-jin (36) reunites with Max Scherzer, with whom he competed for the Cy Young Award four years ago.
Toronto will play a four-game series against Texas at its home stadium, the Rogers Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from the 12th to the 15th (Korean time).바카라
The starting lineup, which is considered Toronto’s greatest strength this season, is fully prepared. Chris Bassett will appear in the first game, and Ryu Hyun-jin will appear in the second game. Next, Yusei Kikuchi and Kevin Gausman take turns.
Ryu Hyun-jin’s role in this season’s team is closer to that of the fifth starter. Since returning from injury, he has never pitched more than five innings. But this time, my opponent is Ace. On the 13th, Texas announced three-time Cy Young winner Scherzer as the starting pitcher for Ryu Hyun-jin’s game.
Scherzer is considered one of the best pitchers in the game, along with Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, and Zack Greinke. Starting with his last American League Cy Young Award in 2013, he has been honored a total of three times, from 2016 to 2017 (National League Cy Young Award).
Although he failed to win the award, he also competed for the National League Cy Young Award in 2019, which was Ryu Hyun-jin’s peak season. At the time, Scherzer recorded 9 wins, 5 losses, and an ERA of 2.30 in the first half of the year, and was considered a strong candidate to threaten Ryu Hyun-jin. Ryu Hyun-jin beat Scherzer and came in second in the Cy Young Award voting, but the honor of winning the final award that year went to Jacob deGrom (Texas), who succeeded in a comeback in the second half.
Meanwhile, Scherzer, who played for the Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, and Los Angeles Dodgers and then the New York Mets since last year, moved to Texas this summer. Texas, which was aiming to advance to the postseason for the first time since 2017, risked spending on prospects and hired him as a winning contractor. At the time, Mercury was likely to be first place in the American League West Division, but Texas was pushed back into the wild card competition due to its poor performance. Currently, in the American League wild card rankings, Toronto is in 2nd place and Texas is in 4th place, half a game behind the 3rd place Seattle Mariners. To advance to the postseason, you must place in the top three.
The four-game series between the two teams could be decisive. Even if they only share 2 wins and 2 losses, the ranking will not change much, but Toronto is also only one game behind Seattle, which is in third place as a wild card. If Texas loses three times, the gap with the wild card spot widens. The likelihood of fall baseball will increase if both teams achieve the minimum tie score and maximum winnings.
If the pitcher he is facing is his former rival, his former teammate Corey Seager is in the center of the batting lineup he is actually facing. As of the 11th, Texas is a strong team that ranks first in the league in batting average (0.266), first in scoring (777 points), fifth in home runs (200), and first in slugging percentage (0.454). Seager, who served as the starting shortstop during Ryu Hyun-jin’s Dodgers days, is leading the batting lineup with a batting average of 0.336, an on-base percentage of 0.398, an OPS (sum of on-base percentage and slugging percentage) of 1.050, 30 home runs, and 87 RBIs. Marcus Siemien, who was the starting second baseman in Toronto in 2021, also meets a former colleague as an enemy. He is also hitting hard this year with a batting average of 0.281, 24 home runs, 87 RBI, and 14 stolen bases.