OAKLAND -- Nicky Lopez was the final Royals player who still hadn't settled his salary for the 2022 season, but that was put to rest Thursday when the Royals won their arbitration case against the 27-year-old infielder.

Lopez will earn $2.55 million this year, which is the figure the Royals filed during Spring Training, versus the $2.95 million he and his representation filed.

“Relief [with it] being done,” Lopez said when asked for a reaction to the news prior to the Royals’ series opener against the A’s on Friday. “It’s in the rearview mirror now. The whole process kind of stinks. We tried on our end to get a deal done for a couple weeks before, but it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. So we had to go [to the hearing].”

Lopez has said before that he would like to be in Kansas City long-term, and stay with the club that selected him in the fifth round of the 2016 Draft. He sought a deal that would buy out some or all of his arbitration years.

Arbitration cases were delayed because of the lockout this offseason, and the Royals were unable to come to an agreement with two of their eight arbitration-eligible players during Spring Training, leading to hearings in the middle of the season. Outfielder Andrew Benintendi won his case on May 13 and will earn $8.5 million in his final year before free agency.

In the past, the Royals have typically tried to avoid arbitration hearings, which can create harsh feelings between the player and the club. Since president of baseball operations Dayton Moore took over Kansas City's front office in May 2006, the club had gone to an arbitration hearing with a player only once. That was in 2018, when reliever Brandon Maurer lost the hearing and was awarded the Royals’ offer of $2.95 million.

This was the first year of arbitration for Lopez, who was a Super Two player. The case was based on his 2021 season, which was a career year for the everyday infielder. He became the first Royals shortstop to hit .300, and he posted a .743 OPS with 22 stolen bases. Lopez had just a 13.1% strikeout rate and an eye-popping 6.0 WAR after FanGraphs updated its defensive metrics to help improve the measurement of a player’s range. It added 1.6 WAR to Lopez's already impressive 4.4 mark.

Lopez, who came into play Friday hitting .214, admitted the arbitration hearing had been on his mind leading up to it.

“Yeah, this whole year I’ve been thinking about it,” Lopez said. “Having calls with my agent constantly about it, just trying to get something done early, come to an agreement. Obviously we weren’t able to. But it’s just good to have it done now, in the rearview mirror."