LOS ANGELES _ The lower his earned-run average goes, the more Dodgers left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu flirts with history.
Ryu came off the injured list to allow five hits in seven scoreless innings of Sunday's 9-3 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks before 44,619 in Dodger Stadium to improve to 12-2 with a major league-best 1.45 ERA in 22 starts.
Ryu's ERA is better than the franchise record for lowest single-season ERA by a pitcher with a minimum of 20 starts, the 1.58 mark that Hall-of-Famer Rube Marquard posted for the 1916 Brooklyn Dodgers.
Next on the list are two legendary left-handers, one who appears headed for the Hall of Fame and one who has been inducted: Clayton Kershaw (1.69 ERA in 2016) and Sandy Koufax (1.73 ERA in 1966 and 1.74 ERA in 1964).
Ryu, who struck out four and walked one, threw 91 pitches, 58 for strikes. He wasn't particularly overpowering, inducing only six swinging strikes, but he had excellent command and kept the D-Backs off-balance with the varying speeds of his changeup, cut-fastball, two-seam fastball, curve and four-seam fastball.
The Dodgers backed Ryu with a 14-hit attack that included four home runs off Arizona starter Mike Leake _ two by third baseman Justin Turner and one each by Cody Bellinger and Will Smith _ the 13th time this season the Dodgers have hit at least four homers in a game.
It was the 19th quality start of the season for Ryu, who was placed on the 10-day injured list because of neck stiffness Aug. 1. Arizona mounted only one serious threat against Ryu, putting two on with no outs in the sixth, but Christian Walker flied to the wall in right field, and Wilmer Flores grounded into a double play.
Ryu improved to 3-0 with an 0.45 ERA in three starts against the Diamondbacks this season.
The Dodgers wasted no time inflating Leake's ERA, which jumped from 4.24 to 4.58. Joc Pederson was hit by a pitch to open the first and Turner hit a towering fly ball that barely cleared the left-field wall for a two-run homer.
Bellinger followed with a laser into the left-center field seats for his 38th homer and a 3-0 lead, the 11th time this season the Dodgers have hit back-to-back home runs. Of Bellinger's seven hits this month, four have been homers.
Matt Beaty's single, Ryu's sacrifice bunt and Pederson's two-out RBI single pushed the lead to 4-0 in the second, and Seager's two-out double and Smith's two-run homer to left on an 0-and-2 slider _ the rookie catcher's seventh homer of the season _ made it 6-0 in the third.
Turner led off the fifth by driving a 1-2 slider over the wall in left-center for his 19th homer of the season and the ninth multi-homer game of his career. Bellinger doubled to right and took third when Seager's fly ball off the glove of right fielder Adam Jones was ruled a double. Smith's sacrifice fly to right made it 8-0.
Eduardo Escobar hit a solo homer off Dodgers reliever Yimi Garcia in the eighth inning, and Nick Ahmed hit a two-run homer off JT Chargois in the ninth.
