Ryu Hyun-jin stymies San Francisco, improves to 3-1

Ryu Hyun-jin of the Los Angeles Dodgers picked up his third win of the young Major League Baseball season on Thursday after tossing seven shutout innings against the San Francisco Giants in his club's 2-1 victory on the road.

The South Korean left-hander held the National League West division rivals to four singles and one walk over seven frames while striking out three. He is now 3-1 with a 1.93 ERA and 25 strikeouts over 28 innings.

This was his fourth scoreless outing out of five this year. He has yet to allow an earned run on the road so far, a span of 26 innings.

Ryu also got a measure of revenge against the Giants. On April 4 against them at home, Ryu was tagged for eight earned runs on eight hits and three walks in just two innings, the shortest start of his MLB career.

Hunter Pence, a Ryu nemesis with a career batting average of .400 against him, hit a single in the bottom of the first and stole second, but was stranded there when Pablo Sandoval grounded out to short and Buster Posey lined out to center.

It turned out to be the only time the Giants put a man in scoring position against Ryu, as the southpaw mowed down their lineup, inducing one groundout after another.

Ryu threw 112 pitches and 72 were for strikes.

The Dodgers opened the scoring in the top second on an RBI single by Tim Federowicz, and Adrian Gonzalez doubled the lead with an RBI single of his own in the top fifth.

Right-hander Brian Wilson relieved Ryu to start the eighth inning. He gave up a leadoff double to Ehire Adrianza and issued a one-out walk to Pence but retired the next two batters to escape the jam.

Closer Kenley Jansen gave up a run in the ninth but preserved the win for Ryu.

Before the game, the Dodgers' Twitter account posted a photo of Ryu's locker, where the pitcher had put up a sign, "SEWOL 4.16.14," in tribute to victims of the sinking of the Sewol ferry in South Korea earlier this week.

The death toll from the accident reached 25 overnight, with 271 of the 475 passengers still missing off the south coast of the country. Ryu had written on his Twitter earlier that he hoped all those missing would return home safely. (Yonhap)