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The nature of the games were such that you could have watched the Cubs’ three wins in Pittsburgh and not necessarily freaked out that Jorge Lopez hadn’t pitched. In fact, I think the first moment I even wondered why I hadn’t seen him in a while was the 9th inning yesterday, when Porter Hodge came back out for a second inning of work. Fine decision in isolation, but with Lopez having not pitched in a while, I assumed it would be him.
That is all to say, we didn’t really have reason to know until now that Lopez is dealing with an injury.
Lopez has a groin strain that is apparently mild enough that it MIGHT not require an IL stint, but the Cubs were holding him out of the Pirates series to see if he could recover by this weekend. If not, he’ll go on the IL.
Not great news either way, because whether he’s absent or pitching through a little something, the Cubs can’t afford to lose Lopez right now. Might’ve seemed a crazy statement when he was a flyer grab after the Mets dumped him, but Lopez has been OUTRAGEOUSLY good for the Cubs: 0.79 ERA over 22.2 IP, 2.47 FIP, 28.1% K, 7.9% BB, 3.5% barrel, 33.3% hard contact, 62.5%(!) groundball rate. He’s had some good luck on the strand rate that is holding down the ERA a bit, but as you can see from the peripherals, he’s been dominant regardless. And just watching him, you can SEE it. The guy is clearly feeling it ever since coming over to the Cubs, and I hate to see any of that interrupted.
Hopefully, then, it was a REALLY minor issue and the Cubs were being OVERLY cautious. We’ll find out this weekend.