With Some Simple Fixes, Cubs Have Found Something Great in Jorge López

[Matthew Trueblood]

A hurler who came up to the big leagues with Craig Counsell is back under his aegis, and it's working like a charm--thanks to greater comfort and a couple of obvious tweaks.

Image courtesy of Nick Wass

In a rubber match against one of his former teams Wednesday afternoon, Jorge López had the latest of several great outings for the Cubs. His two scoreless innings included two strikeouts, and he earned the win, since starter Javier Assad had left too early to claim it. That showing brought López's ERA in a Cubs uniform down to 0.54, in 16 2/3 innings. After almost two years of being thoroughly lost, the peripatetic López finds himself at home in the Cubs' rebooted relief corps.

When the Orioles permanently moved López to short relief in 2022, he took to the role and exploded onto the scene, netting Baltimore a great prospect haul in a July trade to Minnesota. Thereafter, though, he collapsed again. With the Twins, then the Marlins, then the Orioles again, and this spring with the Mets, López struggled with mental health (even spending a stint on the injured list while with the Twins for that express reason) and with the physical aspects of pitching, including the simplest task of the pitcher: throwing strikes.

López is, by all accounts, a genial and deeply well-meaning person. He has so often battled with the pressure and stress of this job, though, that he was running out of chances in MLB when he arrived in the Cubs organization. He was cut by the Mets after an ugly incident in which he erupted in frustration after a bad outing, including hurling his glove into the stands.

His problems with New York (and in previous stops) were not by any means confined to psychology. There were real alignment, pitch mix, and command problems that needed to be addressed, and with the Cubs, in a reunion with the first manager he had in MLB, López has made those changes.

Prior to this season, even, López made the first of a few needed changes. By sliding toward first base in his setup on the rubber, he created more room for his arsenal and augmented his ability to land a fairly varied pitch mix in the strike zone. He's a different pitcher when he can hit the plate with all his offerings than when he's struggling to get the ball to one edge or the other; that's true of most hurlers.

With the Mets, though, it didn't pay off, because López was trying to be too much like a starting pitcher, even working in short relief. He threw both his four-seamer and his sinker to both lefties and righties, and he balanced his secondary offerings fairly evenly. That works for some pitchers even in bullpen roles, but López's command isn't good enough to put him in that fraternity of the flexible. Besides, his stuff is good enough to dominate hitters with just two or three pitches, as long as he picks the right ones for a given matchup. When the Cubs got ahold of him, López changed his approach, much for the better.

Combine the changes in pitch mix with those in alignment on the mound, and López is locating much better since joining the Cubs, to both lefties and righties. To the former, that means more elevated fastballs, especially thanks to the increased reliance on his four-seamer, at the expense of the sinker.

He's also getting inside on those lefties a bit more often, which has helped him prevent the hard contact that plagued him at some previous stops. To righties, meanwhile, it's meant stretching the zone laterally, with sinkers in and sliders down and away.

He's still not completely overwhelming or overpowering hitters. López's strikeout rate as a Cub is barely over 20%, though he has cut his walk rate a bit. He's thriving mostly with a better capacity for limiting damage on contact, and sustaining that in relief is always tricky. For now, though, the Cubs have found a gem, and it's a feel-good story for both López and his new, old skipper. He's set to be a free agent this winter, but given the circumstances of his arrival and the degree of his success, it wouldn't be surprising to see the two sides work out a deal to keep him on the North Side for 2025. He seems comfortable here, and that's no small thing, for him or for the team.

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[Brock Beauchamp]

After all this guy has gone through with mental health issues and his son's illness, he's an easy guy to cheer on.