López looking for 'consistency with results' in stretch run

MINNEAPOLIS -- Pablo López got the uncharted territory out of the way last season, when he finally attained his goal of staying healthy for a full season. Now, he’s trying to vanquish the final frontier in his progression to front-of-rotation starter: Find the consistency in his results this deep into the season.

López began August about as well as any starting pitcher could hope, holding opponents to one run across 25 innings while nurturing a career-high scoreless-innings streak of 19 frames. But he finished that potential career month with a pair of less dominant starts, including one of his messier outings, in which he still allowed only three runs as part of a 4-2 loss to the Guardians at Target Field on Tuesday night.

The defeat reduced the Twins’ lead in the American League Central to six games over the Guardians with 29 games left to play. Cleveland holds the tiebreaker by leading the season series between the clubs, 5-4, with four games remaining this season.

“They definitely make you work through good at-bat after good at-bat,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The fact that you can still grind through that if you’re Pablo, and go six and finish strong and do it the way he did, I think he recovered nicely and ended up giving us a chance to win the game.”

And while it was a challenging outing with multiple hits allowed in the second, third and fourth innings and baserunners in every inning but the fifth, López did what he typically does, even when he doesn’t have his best execution: He got through the challenge and kept his team in it deep into the game, retiring nine of the final 10 batters he faced to grit out a quality start.

That’s the consistency López has given the Twins even when things have gotten messy. The club’s Opening Day starter has completed at least five innings in 18 consecutive starts and has given Minnesota 17 quality starts among his 27 this season. He wasn’t typically counted on to be a workhorse in five seasons with Miami due to injury troubles -- but that’s changed.

“Well, he's a workhorse guy now,” Baldelli said. “Pablo's got tremendous dedication and work ethic and he's got an excellent plan every day. He knows exactly what he's doing when he shows up here every day and he knows how to get ready for his start and be ready for a full season.”

While López allowed a Bo Naylor homer in the second and limited the damage to another run apiece in the third and fourth innings despite putting multiple men in scoring position with none out in each inning, the Twins also had their opportunities and failed to take advantage.

They loaded the bases for Royce Lewis in the first inning, giving the rookie a chance to crush a grand slam for a third straight day, but he popped out. However, Lewis connected for a home run to lead off the bottom of the fourth, as he has homered in three consecutive games. In the fourth and fifth, Minnesota had opportunities with runners on the corners, but it couldn’t capitalize on the rallies as López grew stronger through the outing.

“One recipe for success is to just force the early contact, which I did, and it just sometimes didn't go my way,” López said. “But it became just limiting the damage. I felt like we did a good job when we had runners on second and third with no outs. Just trying to get out of the inning and keep the game within reach. That's definitely a positive outcome of tonight's game.”

López is already well past his career high in strikeouts, and with his season total up to 196, he should be able to use his next start to become the first Twins pitcher to cross the 200-strikeout threshold since José Berríos in 2018. He’s well on his way to surpassing his previous career high of 180 innings.

But as the season nears its stretch run and the Twins look beyond, López is navigating the challenge of coupling his consistency and workhorse ability with the flashes of ace-level dominance he’s shown at various points this season -- the level he’ll need to find before the Twins perhaps look to put their playoff destiny in his hands in October.

“Consistency with a process can lead to consistency with results,” López said. “It's gotten to the point when you want to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to getting your work in. Every start will tell you something to work on for the next one. It's just keeping that consistency with the process [that] will hopefully lead to the rest.”