Minneapolis - Just when Pablo López seemed to have put the injuries behind him, the injury bug struck him again on Friday night in the Minnesota Twins' 6-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians.
It all went down in the top of the third, when the lead-off hitter, Angel Martinez, hit a ball that bounced off López's heel and towards first base. He made a diving throw to Kody Clemens at first base to get the out, and lay on the ground for a couple of seconds as though he had died, then got up and had a quick laugh with his teammates.
López finished the third without any pain. However, he began to feel some tightness in his forearm between innings as a result of the awkward play and how he landed on his arm. López only threw 12 pitches in the fourth inning, but was concerned with the tightness not going away. The Twins removed him from the game to prevent any further injury to his throwing arm.
"After that play, I think I still had the adrenaline from that play," López said postgame. "It was a quick inning anyways. But the next inning, something felt tense, something felt a little tight, something didn't feel all the way right."
López discussed it with his catcher, Jhonny Pereda, then brought it to head trainer Nick Paparesta's attention. Paparesta did a 'crank down' on López's forearm to evaluate the tension, and though it wasn't feeling any worse, they weren't going to take any chances on López going back out there after just his third start in three months.
"I told him what I was dealing with, so we made the decision of stopping right there and then, and then I went back and looked at that play," he said. "It wasn't as great as I thought it was to begin with, and then I saw the kind of weird motion that the forearm or elbow that I put on those muscles."
López will undergo imaging on his arm on Saturday to determine the next steps for his next start, which is currently scheduled for next Thursday in Texas. If available, it would be López's final start of the season. However, with the uncertainty surrounding his right forearm tightness for now, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli isn't going to jump ahead to any conclusions.
"He did have the odd play where his hand kind of got caught underneath him," said Baldelli. "He felt it soon after that. But really, that's all we know right now. We're just going to go with just playing it kind of by ear right now. Get the imaging done. See what the medical staff says. And just kind of play it slow and see what happens."
It's the last place López wants to be right now after missing three months of the season with a shoulder injury. Every player wants to go into the off-season healthy, and in the immediate time between an early exit and until the imaging is done, it leaves time for anxiety to creep in.
Even with only nine games left to go and a doubleheader on Saturday, the Twins don't want to be without López the rest of the way, nor does he want to end the season on the IL. The Twins already lost Matt Wallner to an oblique strain on Wednesday, and Ryan Jeffers is questionable to return this year after getting a concussion on September 5.
"Right now, I'm overthinking it," he said. "There's only so much that can be going on with the forearm or elbow, so my mind definitely takes me to worse places, worst-case scenarios, which is less than ideal. I'm trying to remember what I felt 12 years ago when I blew my elbow out, and I think I'm probably not helping my case."
López didn't go as deep as the Twins or as he had hoped. Still, he retired 10 of his last 12 batters faced after allowing two runs off a two-run RBI single from Guardians catcher Bo Naylor in the first. Those results bring about some positivity for what he's still capable of after missing so much time.
"That offense definitely can make things happen," he said. "If you make good pitches, you [get] early outs. I think that's probably why in the four innings I pitched, I was able to even my pitch count out.
"I got some quick outs after the second inning. It was one of those that, as I was getting into my groove, getting to my rhythm, I could've hopefully pitched a couple of more innings, but obviously that wasn't the case."
While the play at first leaves López's health in question for the rest of 2025, he at least had a good laugh with how the play was made and got laughs from the crowd and teammates, too.
"I should've done a push-up to make it more fun," López joked.