Kansas City Royals: 3 stars from series win against Miami

1. Jorge Lopez

Jorge Lopez has generally struggled this season as a reliever turned starter after the Kansas City Royals traded Homer Bailey. Lopez made 7 starts for the team last year but has made 14 this season including Friday night’s start to kick off the series.

He’s made 35 appearances overall this year with a 6.23 ERA but he was really good in game one. Lopez tossed 6.0 innings of 4 hit ball with 5 strikeouts while not allowing any earned runs or walks. He needed 95 pitches to complete his outing and tossed 61 pitches for strikes.

He was super amped up in the fifth inning after Whit Merrifield received the relay from Brett Phillips and threw out Bryan Holaday, who was trying to tie the game up.

"“Nice throw to Whit, one bounce, Vilo got it, tagged… We were fire!”"

Including Friday, Lopez has a 6.26 ERA in his last 7 games (4 starts) with 23.0 innings and 22 strikeouts, 1.22 WHIP, and 7 walks. Friday’s game was against a bad Marlins offense so it’s tough to gauge if Lopez was really good or if it was the competition.

Lopez should be able to make a few more starts before the season is done so we’ll determine if this is him getting on the right track or just a fluke. The 26-year old could be moved back to the bullpen next season.