River Ryan gets a standing ovation in his major league debut as Dodgers edge Giants
River Ryan handed the ball to manager Dave Roberts in the top of the sixth inning Monday night, and as he headed toward the third-base dugout, a crowd of 49,576 in Dodger Stadium rose to applaud the 25-year-old right-hander, who tapped his chest in appreciation of the gesture.
No matter what happened after he departed with the score tied and runners on first and third and one out, it was clear by the crowd’s reaction and the high-fives and handshakes Ryan received in the dugout that his major league debut was a success.
“The ground starts to shake a little bit when everybody gets loud,” Ryan said of the standing ovation. “That was really fun to be a part of.”
A 35-year-old left-hander who signed a one-year contract with the Dodgers, James Paxton had given the team’s short-handed rotation key innings over the first half of the year.
Teoscar Hernández then drove the decibel level in Chavez Ravine even higher in the eighth when he knocked in his third run of the game with a two-out single to center field to lift the Dodgers to a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
With the score tied 2-2, Kiké Hernández opened the eighth with a fly ball that fell on the warning track between center fielder Heliot Ramos and left fielder Luis Matos for a double.
Giants left-hander Erik Miller struck out Shohei Ohtani, but Will Smith walked. Shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald made a nice diving stop of Freddie Freeman’s grounder up the middle and shoveled the ball with his glove hand to second for the second baseman Brett Wisely for the second out.
San Francisco manager Bob Melvin summoned right-hander Randy Rodriguez to face Teoscar Hernández, who lined a 98-mph 2-and-2 fastball on the outside corner to center to score Kiké Hernández for a 3-2 lead, giving Teoscar 67 RBIs on the season, 27 of them coming with two outs.
Daniel Hudson struck out two of four batters in a scoreless ninth for his seventh save, as the Dodgers extended their win streak to four.
“He’s been fantastic,” Roberts said of Teoscar Hernández. “We’ve said it all year — he just hunts and smells those RBIs, and when you get a guy on second base, he’s trying to drive that run in. That ball was dotted, down and away, at 98 mph. He didn’t try to do too much with it. He just tried to get a base hit. That’s how you win baseball games.”
It helps to get starts like the one delivered by Ryan, who allowed one unearned run and four hits in 5⅓ innings, striking out two and walking three for a no-decision, the longest start by a Dodgers pitcher since Tyler Glasnow went six innings on July 5.
Ryan, who was drafted as a two-way player by San Diego in 2021 but gave up shortstop after the Dodgers acquired him for utility man Matt Beaty in the spring of 2022, had never pitched into the sixth inning in any of his 45 minor league starts, but he faced three batters in the sixth Monday night.
Left-hander Alex Vesia bailed out Ryan in the sixth, striking out Matos with a 91-mph fastball and Matt Chapman with a 93-mph fastball to escape the first-and-third jam.
“He was commanding the baseball, attacking guys,” Smith said of Ryan. “I know he was a little nervous before the game, but he settled right in after the first and gave us 5⅓ innings. That was really good.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts still wants to use closer Evan Phillips in “leverage” situations, but those scenarios could come earlier in games.
Ryan, the brother of Pittsburgh reliever Ryder Ryan, is the third rookie starter — not counting Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto — to pitch well for the Dodgers after making his big-league debut this season, following Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski.
“It’s been huge,” Roberts said of the rookie contributions. “They’ve allowed us to sustain winning while at the same time cutting their teeth and gaining experience. That’s kind of the best of both worlds, where a lot of times you just don’t have that.”
With Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw coming off the injured list this week, Ryan’s stay with the Dodgers is expected to be short. But he will likely get at least one more start.
“That’s the thought right now,” Roberts said. “He’s not going anywhere tonight. It’s day to day, but I think for him, the message is just to plan for making his next start with us.”
Teoscar Hernández had three of his team’s six hits, his first coming when he golfed a down-and-in slider from Giants left-hander Blake Snell 411 feet into the left-field seats for his 21st home run, a solo shot that tied the score 1-1 in the fourth.
The Dodgers took a 2-1 lead in the sixth when Freeman walked with two outs, took second on Snell’s wild pitch and scored on Teoscar Hernández’s single to center.
San Francisco tied it 2-2 on Fitzgerald’s solo homer to left-center field off left-hander Ryan Yarbrough in the top of the seventh, but Teoscar Hernández answered again in the eighth.
“At the beginning of the season, I was not really good with men in scoring position,” said Hernández, who is seven for 17 with two homers since winning the All-Star Game Home Run Derby on July 15. “I think it was because I was trying to do too much, trying to overswing, trying to cover the whole plate.
“Now, it’s more having a plan and executing it the way I want to execute, sticking with it even if I don’t get the job done. … I try not to not put more pressure on myself and to calm myself down. I want those at-bats. I like to be in those situations.”
Are you a true-blue fan?
Get our Dodgers Dugout newsletter for insights, news and much more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
