Pablo Lopez named Opening Day starter for Minnesota Twins
When the Twins face the Royals in Kansas City on Opening Day, they'll send right-hander Pablo Lopez to the mound as their starting pitcher. Minnesota named Lopez their Opening Day starter on Friday, effectively meaning he is No. 1 in the rotation, ahead of the Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan and others.
Minnesota acquired Lopez in the trade that send beloved batting champ Luis Arraez to the Miami Marlins.
Lopez, 27, was 10-10 last season with a 3.75 ERA and 187 strikeouts in 180 innings. He is under team control for two more seasons. He made 32 starts last season and has a 3.94 ERA in 510 career innings at the MLB level.
Lopez is back with the Twins at spring training after pitching for Venezuela at the World Baseball Classic. In his lone start, Lopez held Puerto Rico to one run on two hits in 4.2 innings. His fastball topped out at 97 mph.
The Twins and Royals open the season Thursday, March 30 at 3 p.m. CT.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.