Twins face loss of Lopez, ace pitcher, after elbow tear
Each February and March in Fort Myers, hope springs eternal for the Minnesota Twins at their spring training camp. No matter the changes in roster or the obstacles of overcoming injuries that the club has faced in a time where player injuries are a constant battle, especially for pitchers.
This week, the team’s assignment to keep that optimism grew tougher when the club learned they will almost certainly be without frontline starter Pablo Lopez this season. The organization reported that Lopez was diagnosed with significant tearing in his elbow after he experienced discomfort while throwing batting practice on Monday.
That makes Tommy John surgery almost a certainty for Lopez, who underwent the procedure once before early in his minor league career. The team is awaiting a second opinion on the extent of the injury.
Lopez said he first felt the injury in his elbow while throwing batting practice Monday.
“It was very painful on one pitch,” Lopez said. “It didn’t feel pretty at all. It took me aback to when I felt what I felt in 2013 right before I had my first (Tommy John surgery). It’s crazy how a split second like that can take you to something that felt so familiar.”
Lopez said that as soon as he felt something wrong, he spoke with Twins pitching coach Pete Maki and they were able to get imaging done on his elbow fairly quickly.
Despite the injury, Lopez is still getting workouts done at Twins camp. On Thursday, he did a lower body workout where he only used his left hand. He also went to the sauna. “You want to keep moving around,” he said.
Lopez entered the season already facing question marks about his health, as he dealt with hamstring, shoulder and forearm injuries last year that limited him to 14 starts.
Despite all of the injuries, he posted a 2.74 ERA, the best of his career and the best ERA on the team. He also posted a career-low 1.110 WHIP (walks and hits per inning), the fewest hits per inning allowed of his career, and his lowest home run per nine-inning rate since the covid-shortened 2020 season.
Twins Manager Derek Shelton said there was no indication this spring from Lopez that anything was wrong before Monday even though he was coming off a season where he dealt with multiple injuries. “He was fine,” Shelton said. “This was a different injury than he had last year,” he said.
Lopez said he had thrown three live batting practices this spring before he stopped throwing Monday.
Lopez said the MRI he received in September after he felt a forearm strain, showed a flexor tendon strain. The imaging on Monday showed the flexor tendon had healed, but now he had a torn ligament in his elbow.
“That’s tough,” Twins All-Star centerfielder Byron Buxton said of the news of the injury. “He’s a great guy. Obviously that’s a tough call for us. He means a lot to this team.”
Buxton said the acquisition of Lopez in a trade in 2023 for the club’s former batting champion Luis Arraez, was “probably one of the best things that happened.” He brought to the pitching staff “the expectations that they have now,” Buxton said. Lopez was named an American League All-Star in his first year with the Twins. Buxton said his “positivity, his personality,” helped make the team better. Buxton said the acceptance by Lopez of being a leader helped him out in the clubhouse. Buxton said Lopez leads by example.
Shelton said Lopez was always the first person in the clubhouse in the morning at spring training, which spoke to his work ethic.
“Every day,” Buxton said, echoing Shelton’s observation. “He puts in the hardest work you will ever see anyone put in. It always happens to the good guys. I saw him come in the day that they announced it, I came in at 6:45 and he was already running outside around the stadium.”
Buxton said “It just (stinks). Why him?”
“It’s a tough, challenging environment,” Lopez said. “You do so much and then a split-second like that, something out of your control can snap on you, or something can pull out on you. We know what we signed up for. We know that we can spend months and years preparing and something bad can happen. You just hope it never does.”
Lopez said his offseason was “pretty normal” with a similar throwing routine as previous years a couple times a week, with a steady progression. “Pretty standard,” he said. “It’s weird to think that it was just like something that was bound to happen but I guess there is nothing else that I could have done to prevent it.”
Lopez said he gets to the stadium every morning just a little after 6 a.m. “The only reason I am not here earlier is that the daycare where I drop my daughter doesn’t open until 6,” Lopez said.
Lopez said “being on time requires no talent.” He said his worth ethic was instilled on him from his two late parents, who were both doctors.
“Throwing 100 requires a lot of talent, hitting a baseball requires a lot of talent, being on time and being early doesn’t require talent. It requires dedication,” Lopez said. “I got that from my parents. The way they showed up and the way they always let me know ‘you have to take advantage of every opportunity.'”
His work regimen includes a lot of running, as well as two days each week of cardio workouts, along with treadmill and bike exercises. He does weightlifting, from full body lifting to lower body lifts. That doesn’t count the bullpens he throws and the batting practice.
Lopez said going through Tommy John surgery again would be difficult but could help him extend the life of his career. “It’s an opportunity to hit a very big reset button and take a step back,” Lopez said. “One long period of rehab can set the tone for years. It’s a process that taking seriously can be life and career-changing.”
On the bright side, Lopez thinks his Tommy John surgery from 2013 lasted longer than the average player. He said the 12 years his elbow held up is longer than doctors told him the average length of time was when he got the surgery when he was just 17-years-old.
At the time of his injury, Lopez was also getting ready to pitch in the World Baseball Classic for Venezuela, his home country.
Regarding the prevalence of injuries in a sport where players work out as much as ever and are constantly training, and teams are looking at ways to keep players healthy, Buxton said “There is no way to tell. We just go out there and do what we can to try and bring a ring, do what we can.”
Buxton said Lopez “wasn’t doing nothing wrong. He was just throwing at batters like he normally did all offseason.”
Buxton said that while he has gone through a lot of injuries and missed months of a time he has never been gone for a whole year. “Knowing how Pablo is, he probably feels like he is letting the team down not being there for us but we just have to make sure he knows we are there for him, he isn’t letting us down one it.”
Buxton said “we just have to make sure we have his back, the way he has ours.”
Buxton pointed to the performance of Lopez in the 2023 playoffs as an indicator of the quality of Lopez as a pitcher. “2023 was a special year for us and he started it off in the playoffs,” Buxton said, referring to Lopez winning the first game of the Wild Card Series against the Blue Jays, which led them to the American League Division Series against the Houston Astros. Lopez pitched seven scoreless innings against the Astros in Game 2, though the Astros ultimately won the series 3-1.
Lopez went 2-0 in that season’s playoffs, allowing just one run over 12 and two-thirds innings while striking out 10.
Lopez is now waiting on the second opinion. “It’s driving me crazy,” Lopez said. “As much as no one likes to hear bad news, sometimes bad news is better than no news.”
Lopez said he thinks the Twins will do well pitching-wise even if he can’t throw this season. “We have a plethora of arms that are big-league ready stuff-wise,” Lopez said.
Lopez said Shelton has done a good job motivating the team and letting them know “we are raising the standards, we are raising the expectations. We want a clear line of communication.”
Shelton’s job was already tough, taking over managing duties this season from Rocco Baldelli, after a season in which the club went 70-92 and traded away a bulk of their roster.
Shelton spoke to his club about the injury Lopez has faced in a team meeting on Wednesday. “We addressed it yesterday in a meeting. Like we talked about, in no way do we want to not care for Pablo but then we also have to also be able to move on and the next people have to step up into that situation,” Shelton said. “We are going to have some competition in that spot. On the flip side of that, we are going to show compassion for someone who is going through something and support him.”
Shelton said he would like to have Lopez around despite the injury. “There is no better guy in that clubhouse,” Shelton said. “I think that’s important for our group.”
Lopez said he will still be available as a resource to players off the field and if he sees something he can help with alongside Buxton, catcher Ryan Jeffers and pitcher Bailey Ober. Lopez said he thinks he can help the most with players in terms of the mental side from handling scouting reports, and how he approaches pitching.
“If anyone wants to pick my brain, it’s always available. I like discussing and dissecting things,” he said. Lopez said he likes continuing to be around the team in the clubhouse despite the injury. “It lifts my spirits,” he said.
The Twins start their spring training on Friday with an exhibition game against the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers at Lee Health Sports Complex in Fort Myers at 6:05 p.m. The Twins will host the Red Sox at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers on Saturday at 1:05 p.m.