The lefty posted a season-high eight strikeouts against Salt Lake, continuing a strong two-start stretch — but there's still work to do before he's big-league ready
On the last day of May, the New York Yankees batted around twice in a 13-run third inning in Sacramento, leading both Jacob Lopez, the starter of that game, and Michael Kelly, the first reliever in, to being optioned to Triple-A.
Kelly has since been designated for assignment, but Lopez is looking like he's turning a corner his past two starts in the minors.
On June 27 the Aviators were facing the River Cats in Sacramento, and he put together six shutout innings, giving up just three hits and one walk while striking out four. Last night against the Salt Lake Bees, he added another 5 ⅓ innings, giving up one run on five hits and three walks, striking out eight.
The eight strikeouts are a season high for Lopez, who was more of a strikeout pitcher last season, holding a 28.3% rate. His strikeout rate plummeted to 15.6% this season, while his walk rate increased from 9.6% in 2025 to 13.6% this year. The drop in strikeouts and rise in walks helped lead to a 6.75 ERA and his demotion to Las Vegas.
Positive Signs for Lopez
Putting together a combined 11 ⅓ innings while giving up one run on eight hits, four walks and 12 strikeouts is an encouraging starting point for Lopez's climb back to the big leagues. The three walks against Salt Lake last night are a little high, but given that he also recorded the eight strikeouts, that's a sign that his stuff had life.
The big positive here, and this includes his first two starts back in the minors in which he didn't fare as well, is that he's inducing more ground balls. Through four starts, he has recorded 19 ground ball outs, 17 strikeouts and three fly ball outs.
In his start last night against the Bees, he worked with a three-headed monster of his cutter (29%), four-seam (28%) and slider (24%) while also mixing in his sinker and changeup. The big three generated 13 whiffs on 37 swings — a 35% rate — which is another step in the right direction.
Last season the lefty had a whiff rate of 28.3%, which ranked in the 73rd percentile. This season in the big leagues it dropped to 19.4%, ranking in the 9th percentile.
While last night's outing is a good sign, it doesn't necessarily mean all is well.
Still Some Work Left
While producing the numbers is a positive, the competition does play a role as well. These are still Triple-A bats, and even though he was generating weak contact this season with the A's, he was still getting hit around and unable to consistently go at least five innings.
That outing against the Yankees is responsible for the demotion as much for its brevity as for the seven runs he allowed. The A's are always looking for innings, and when a starter has a short outing, the bullpen ends up getting taxed for days.
Last season when he was pitching at his best, he was combining both the strikeouts and whiffs, pairing them with limited walks, which helped him to get deeper into games and really earn his rotation spot heading into this season.
Ahead of Monday's game, A's manager Mark Kotsay said the team would need everyone on the 40-man roster to help them out. A couple more outings like this, and Lopez will be forcing the A's to give him another look.
Jacob Lopez returning to his 2025 second-half form could be just what the A's need to finally get on track this season and rattle off some wins.
