Former Royals pitcher Jorge Lopez finding success in Baltimore Orioles’ bullpen
Right-hander Jorge Lopez teased Kansas City Royals followers as much as any of their pitchers in recent years.
He wasn’t a homegrown product of their farm system, but he certainly carried labels like “potential” and “upside” or “ceiling” when they acquired him from the Milwaukee Brewers along with Brett Phillips as part of the Mike Moustakas trade in 2018.
Lopez showed flashes of the potential that left teammates, coaches and front office officials salivating about his future. He fell into that age-old category of “if he ever puts it all together,” which is to say everyone recognized his raw talent while also recognizing that his inconsistency continually held him back.
This season, the 6-foot-3 native of Puerto Rico who won’t turn 30 until next February may have settled in as a full-time back-end of the bullpen relief option for the Baltimore Orioles, who are in town for a four-game series with the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.
“It’s something (where) you never regret what you worked through even (though) it wasn’t your best years,” Lopez said prior to Thursday’s series opener. “There’s a lot of things I learned from here.”
In 47 games with the Royals (25 starts) between 2018-20, Lopez compiled a 6-13 record with a 6.42 ERA, a 2.59-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, a 1.48 WHIP and 7.5 strikeouts per 9 innings.
He had eye-popping moments, most prominently when he took a perfect game into the ninth inning against the Minnesota Twins on the road in September 2018.
The Royals made the decision to move him to the bullpen midway through the 2019 season, and he showed intriguing potential in that role in the second half. Though the inconsistencies remained.
He went into 2020 slated to be part of the bullpen. However in August during the pandemic-shortened season, the Royals designated Lopez for assignment. He’d allowed two runs in two-thirds of an inning in his lone appearance of the season for the Royals.
He’d been on the bereavement list before being designated for assignment. His minor-league options had been exhausted, so the Royals had to either activate him or expose him to waivers to take him off the 40-man roster.
The Orioles claimed Lopez two days later.
Lopez said he still thinks of KC as “another home,” and he considered the players, coaches and staff from his time with the organization as “family” and holds great affection for the Royals fans.
“It’s been a lot of struggle here, but a lot of good times,” Lopez said. “I’ll never forget those. I’ll go out there and give a big, huge hug to everyone and be thankful.”
Lopez said he has kept the same approach with the Orioles that had learned during his time with the Royals: Working every day to get better with his pitches and his body while trusting the process.
Lopez also struggled early in his tenure with the Orioles.
In 2020, he posted a 6.34 ERA with a .287 batting average against and a 1.43 WHIP in nine appearances (six starts) for the Orioles.
Last season, he pitched in 33 games (25 starts) and registered a 6.07 ERA with a .293 opponents’ batting average and a 1.63 WHIP.
He started against the Royals in July and got a no-decision after having gone 4 2/3 innings and allowed four runs on seven hits and one walk. The Orioles won the game 8-4.
He finished last season on the IL with a right ankle sprain, an injury he sustained while covering first base on play against the Royals on Sept. 6.
A fresh start in the bullpen
Lopez said he didn’t take any time off this offseason and decided he needed to “get that Mamba Mentality.”
“I just did something different in the offseason where I just tried to work more, and that’s when everything exploded right now,” Lopez said.
This season, he’s been used as a full-time relief pitcher.
A little more than two months into this season, Lopez has posted a 1.00 ERA in 23 relief appearances (27 innings) with seven saves in nine save opportunities. He has struck out 25 batters and walked 13 while having allowed an opponents’ batting average of .141 and a WHIP of 0.96 entering the series in KC.
His velocity has played up in shorter bursts out of the bullpen. His sinking fastball averaged 93.8 mph in 2019, 93.5 mph in 2020 and 95.3 mph in 2021, and has averaged 97.7 mph in 2022.
Lopez doesn’t feel pitch usage has been a difference as much as he feels like he just missed his spots a lot more during his time with the Royals. He doesn’t think he’d ever felt as strong as he does now.
The shorter outings out of the bullpen have also contributed to him tapping into more velocity.
“So far I just throw the (crap) out of it,” Lopez said with a laugh. “For real, it’s one inning, two innings. I just focus on whatever situation I have. So, with this team, it’s way different than when I was there.”
Thus far this season, he has ranked among the top pitchers in the league in advanced metrics such as expected slugging percentage (.312, top 6%), hard hit percentage (27.5, top 4%) and weighted on-base average (.219, top 5%).
Lopez said he has worked to shorten his arm path in his delivery and also incorporated more of his hips and understands more about the importance of pelvic rotation.
He was the catalyst for the tweaks to his mechanics, but the Orioles staff has been crucial to him making those adjustments.
“They helped me a lot, it’s like (Kansas City),” Lopez said. “They also were able to find something where we try to get better. It’s working here, and hopefully it continues.”
Mikael goes to the ballpark
Royals fans familiar with Lopez may also recall that his son Mikael has been in poor health since birth, afflicted with chronic diseases Familial Mediterranean Fever and Crohn’s disease.
The combination means Mikael has regularly dealt with fevers and abdomen pain as well as inflammatory bowel disease. Daily injections, medications and myriad medical procedures have been part of his life.
From the time he joined the Royals, Lopez talked about Mikael as an inspiration and constant presence in his mind.
When the Royals designated Lopez for assignment and he was claimed by the Orioles, Lopez and his wife decided to buy a home in Ohio with Mikael’s condition as the primary factor.
They spent time in Cincinnati during the offseason of 2015 to be near the doctors who first diagnosed his diseases.
Lopez didn’t want to introduce any uncertainty at that point in his son’s ongoing treatment. Lopez described it as a “scared moment” for his family.
Last July, Mikael had a bone marrow transplant followed by 14 days of chemotherapy.
Since then, they’ve taken it day-by-day and leaned heavily on prayer, Lopez said.
Mikael still doesn’t eat without a feeding tube and must have intestinal dilation to keep his body working properly.
But he and the rest of Lopez’s family enjoyed “something so special” last month.
On Mikael’s ninth birthday, he got to attend a game and see his father pitch in person for the first time since before the pandemic. In recent seasons, his immune system had been so weak and left him so vulnerable that he couldn’t be at the ballpark.
But this year they celebrated Mikael’s birthday at Boston’s Fenway Park on a day when Lopez got the save against the Red Sox.
“I can’t even describe it,” Lopez said.
While Lopez warmed up in the bullpen, Mikael watched with a mask on at a fence a few feet away. Lopez admitted he couldn’t even look at Mikael while warming up because if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to focus on pitching.
“When that happened, I got a lot of memories from here too,” Lopez said. “... That was huge for him. That was on his birthday, spending it at Fenway (Park), a nice suite with the whole family after almost three years. It’s something special for him, for us and for everybody, seeing his smile, hugging everybody and saying hi to everybody.”
