Lopez homer sets winning tone against O's

BALTIMORE -- Fans donning Royals blue crowded behind the visiting dugout on Thursday night, showering shortstop Nicky Lopez with applause and cheers as he headed to the clubhouse after Kansas City’s 6-0 win over the Orioles at Camden Yards.

Lopez is known for helping to drive in runs on sacrifice hits. But as the Royals surged a split of the four-game set, Lopez drove home runs in a different manner.

With one out in the first inning, Lopez tagged the second pitch of his first at-bat and blasted the ball a Statcast-projected 383 feet to right field for his second home run of the year.

Entering the series finale, Lopez was batting .386 with 20 RBIs with runners in scoring position since the All-Star break on July 13. His power in the two-hole has been key for the Royals’ offense, especially with the speedy Whit Merrifield ahead of him in the lineup.

And, this all comes from a player who hadn’t made the team out of Spring Training and was set to start the season at the alternate training site. (Lopez was called up on March 31, after Adalberto Mondesi was placed on the IL with a right oblique strain.)

“It’s one of the great stories in the game in my opinion,” manager Mike Matheny said. “A guy who didn’t make our club coming out of Spring Training and now is leading our team. As far as average goes and his OPS, his quality at-bats in tough situations and leverage, and RBIs and two-out RBIs, it’s just a really nice approach that I think’s going to work for him for a long time.

“He’s been such a bright spot. … He’s really turning into a very well-rounded Major League player.”

Lopez’s solo blast was the only run Kansas City had scratched across the plate until an insurance eighth inning. The Royals did what Matheny has been preaching -- playing smart, small ball. By stringing together hits from the top half of the lineup -- ignited by a leadoff double from Hunter Dozier in the nine-hole -- Kansas City pushed three runs across in the eighth on five hits.

Lopez added an RBI single to plate Dozier in the eighth, going 3-for-5 for the game to finish the series 8-for-19 with four RBIs.

Dozier, too, has been turning his game around lately -- in addition to that double, the outfielder hit a ninth-inning two-run homer to ensure the win.

“He’s expanding how he views himself as a player,” Matheny said. “He’s relentless in his work, we talk about that, but now he’s starting to make a little bit better approach to the ball and making some of the adjustments we were hoping he’d make. [I’m] really happy for him to have some of that success that he had today.”

Lopez’s home run gave starter Carlos Hernández an early lead and something to fall back on as he logged his sixth quality start of the season, throwing six scoreless innings. It ranks among some of his most dominant outings this season, with Hernández throwing the 10 hardest pitches of all pitchers -- Kansas City or Baltimore -- as nine were over 98 mph. He allowed three hits and three walks while recording one strikeout.

“Carlos did a fantastic job of pitching, mixing it up, using everything -- really unpredictable, but executing pitches,” Matheny said. “He gets himself [in trouble], and today he was having a little more trouble than he normally is -- gave up a walk -- but then he figures out ways to work out of his own mess and give our guys a chance.”

Two of the three hits that Hernández allowed came in the second inning, when the O’s put two on with two outs. But Hernández stayed positive and stayed within himself, relying on his defense. And it came through as Andrew Benintendi made a spectacular throw from left field on a single from Jahmai Jones to catch Pedro Severino at home plate.

“Attack,” Hernández said regarding his approach. “Attack the hitter, attack the strike zone, just attack. My mentality is positive, right now it’s just, ‘Attack.’”

Even as the rain started pouring in the bottom of the fourth inning, Hernández kept dealing, getting out of the inning with a flyout and a groundout after walking two of the first three batters he faced in the frame.

“He sort of now pitches with an attitude,” Lopez said. “[He] pitches with a sort of confidence that maybe he didn’t have early on in the season, and that’s awesome to see. That’s something you build off of and you see that when you look back at the season, ‘Hey this is the way I had to compete every single day.’ … It was a great way to end the season, as the season’s coming to a close."