‘Babe Ryuth’ leads Dodgers to 7-5 victory over Diamondbacks

Look out Clayton Kershaw, seems the Dodgers now have a pair of good-hitting starting pitchers.

Hyun-Jin Ryu, who did not pick up a bat for the last seven years while playing in South Korea, had three hits Saturday against the Diamondbacks. Apparently the Diamondbacks announcers were so taken by his hitting skill, they dubbed him Babe Ryuth.

He’s paid to pitch, of course, and he did that plenty well enough to lead the Dodgers, and an actual semblance of offense, to a 7-5 victory over the Diamondbacks at Chase Field, despite the bullpen almost blowing a five-run lead.

Ryu went six-plus innings, allowing three runs on six hits, a walk and nine strikeouts. He had allowed only one run when he left the game in the bottom of the seventh after surrendering a single and a walk, but reliever Ronald Belisario allowed both to come home and were charged to Ryu.

The game was scoreless through three innings before Adrian Gonzalez hit a solo homer off Arizona’s Ian Kennedy.

The Dodgers added two more in the fifth. Carl Crawford scored from first on a Skip Schumaker double. After an intentional walk to Gonzalez, Andre Ethier’s base hit scored Schumaker.

A Cliff Pennington single, wild pitch, sacrifice bunt and an A.J. Pollock groundout scored the Diamondbacks’ first run against Ryu in the bottom of the inning. The Dodgers came back with three more in the sixth led by Ryuth.

With his parents in attendance, Ryu doubled and had two singles in three at-bats. He is the first Dodgers pitcher with three hits in one game since Randy Wolf on Aug. 16, 2009. He was at the plate for a fourth at-bat in the seventh when Justin Sellers was picked off first.

But his two-out single in the sixth ignited the three-run rally. He was doubled to third by the hot-hitting Crawford, and Schumaker walked to load the bases for Matt Kemp.

The struggling Kemp lined a two-run single to left. That was it for Kennedy, but Gonzalez greeted Arizona reliever Matt Reynolds with an RBI single to make it a 6-1 lead.

After Belisario followed Ryu and gave up a pair of run-scoring singles, Kenley Jansen allowed two more to score in the eighth, one on a Martin Prado homer and a second on an Aaron Hill double to pull within a run.

The Dodgers added some insurance in the ninth on doubles by Ethier and Ramon Hernandez.

Brandon League pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his fourth save in as many opportunities.

The Dodgers’ dormant offense managed 14 hits Saturday, six for extra bases.

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