OAKLAND, Calif. — Pablo López’s pitches were darting to the left and to the right. Very few were down the middle of the plate.
Following a few mechanical adjustments during a midweek bullpen and a decision to simplify everything, López looked a lot like the dominant pitcher he was in 2023 on Sunday afternoon. Leaning heavily on a fastball-changeup combination, López was outstanding against an aggressive Oakland A’s offense as the Twins earned a series victory with a 3-0 win in front of 18,491 at the Oakland Coliseum.
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Byron Buxton homered and doubled in a run in support of López, who retired the first 17 batters he faced and tied a career-high with 14 strikeouts over eight scoreless innings. Griffin Jax earned a save for the Twins, who head into Monday’s off day with a 43-35 mark.
“It was grooving and smooth,” Buxton said of López. “It’s one of those where, ‘That’s Pablo.’ You don’t think about the rest of the game. It was watching pitches (on the edges) — nothing straight or middle-middle. That kept them off-balance.”
A day after Bailey Ober picked up the bullpen with the first complete game of his career, López was even better. He worked quickly and efficiently, setting down Athletics hitters in less time than it took them to make the long trek to home plate from the dugout.
The effort was quite a turnaround for López, who after his previous outing seemed uncharacteristically frazzled. Frustrated by inconsistency and a league-leading 50 earned runs, as well as 16 home runs (which previously led the majors), López was visibly upset as he addressed the media following last Tuesday’s start.
In between outings, he worked with an assortment of Twins coaches and analysts to devise a plan for turning things around. The pitcher said Sunday many possibilities were discussed, but rather than focus on “seven things” during a 20-pitch bullpen, López opted to simplify and move forward.
“There were a lot of big words thrown at me when it comes to biomechanics, breaking things down, so it was my job to keep things simple,” López said. “It was my job to simplify a couple things so I was able to if I threw 20 pitches, I got the most out of those 20 pitches. On the mound, it was a lot of reminding that confidence should never go down. Confidence should always be there about being specific every pitch.”
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Confidence came in the form of an overpowering four-seam fastball that averaged 95 mph and touched 96.6 mph. López threw 46 four-seamers and generated 10 swings-and-misses, five called strikes, 14 foul balls and only seven balls put in play. He paired it with a changeup thrown 27 times and mixed in some sweepers and curveballs.
The outcome was eight innings in which it seemed like A’s hitters had no chance.
López struck out two in an easy first inning before striking out the side in the second inning. He whiffed two more in the third and made it look easy.
The second time through the order, López made it clear he had perfect-game-type stuff. None of Oakland’s batters came close to a hit until No. 9 hitter Lawrence Butler broke through with two outs in the sixth with a sharp single to right. López rebounded with an easy comebacker off Max Schuemann’s bat to end the sixth.
“He was on fire from the beginning,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He had tremendous stuff from the first pitch of the outing to the last. Nothing wavered. It’s funny, sometimes you wake up, you put in a good week’s work and then you go out there and you’re throwing the heck out of the ball. … He commanded the ball exceptionally well. That’s what we’ve seen a ton of from him. We’ve gotten used to that, and he’s found something that he likes right now.”
Pablo López's 6th & 7th Ks thru 3. pic.twitter.com/VZwi0ZIoIB
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 23, 2024
López opened the seventh inning with his 12th strikeout and worked around his only mistake of the day, a long, one-out single by Miguel Andujar that banged off the left-field fence. He struck out Brent Rooker and got Tyler Soderstrom to fly out. López returned in the eighth and notched his 14th strikeout before issuing a two-out walk to Zack Gelof. But before Baldelli had to go to the bullpen, López got Butler to pop out to end the inning.
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“You know that things are flowing, you find yourself executing good pitch after good pitch,” López said. “(Catcher Christian Vázquez) would ask for a pitch in a location and that’s where my focus would be, just tunnel vision to that target. This pitch has a purpose, this pitch has meaning. It’s just like 100 percent focused on this action right here, right now. Things started flowing and that keeps happening.”
López grooved so much he didn’t want to leave the game. With his pitch count at 102 after eight innings, López impressed Buxton by putting up a strong fight to follow Ober’s gem on Saturday with a second straight complete game.
Though Baldelli considered it, he was more than satisfied with the effort from López, who’d surrendered 10 homers over his previous seven starts. For the first time since May 9, López didn’t yield a homer.
López said afterward he is hopeful Sunday’s effort is the beginning of a turnaround for him. Considered the team’s ace entering the season and a top-seven preseason candidate for the American League Cy Young Award, López is clearly unsatisfied with a seven-start run in which he produced a 7.75 ERA and only delivered 36 innings.
Just as he simplified the information received in between starts, López doesn’t want to make too much out of his one gem. He simply hopes to build off it.
“Now it’s like, how can we make it happen again?” López said. “If I did it once, I can do it again. Just keeping that mentality. Obviously, a game where things went the way they went today allows me to be like, ‘You know what? My confidence should not (waver), but should stay up for most of the time.’ There’s all kinds of people having my back, letting me know that I can do this. So why not just go out there and have fun?”
(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)