As Marlins’ Pablo Lopez looks to build on strong 2020, a new pitch is in the works

As spring training for the 2020 season unfolded, Pablo Lopez began developing a cutter.

With spring training for the 2021 season now underway, Lopez is again tinkering with his arsenal. His four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter and changeup remain.

Now, he’s trying to add a breaking ball back into his repertoire that better fits his arm slot compared to the curveball he had previously thrown to give himself a steady fifth pitch as he prepares for his fourth big-league season.

“It can only help me,” Lopez explained Tuesday after throwing two shutout innings in his first spring training appearance at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium. “As a starting pitcher, your main focus is you have to go through the lineup three or hopefully four times, so the more good pitches you have that you feel comfortable throwing in any count, the more unpredictable you remain, which is a huge weapon. You don’t want to fall into patterns. You don’t want to become too predictable.”

Lopez saw success on that front during the shortened 2020 season. During his 11 regular-season starts and 57 1/3 innings, he set career-best marks in ERA (3.61), walks and hits per inning (1.19), strikeouts per nine innings (9.26), hits allowed per nine innings (7.85) and home runs allowed per nine innings (0.63).

He had a pretty even split among his top three pitches, according to Statcast. Lopez threw his four-seam fastball 32.2 percent of the time, his changeup 29.9 percent of the time and sinker 22.5 percent. The cutter and curveball accounted for the remaining 15.4 percent.

Lopez now strives to show he can replicate those results over a full 162-game season, one in which he will be tasked with making as many as 32 starts during the regular season. Each of Lopez’s first two seasons at the MLB level ended early due to shoulder injuries.

But Lopez, who turns 25 on Sunday, said he is preparing as if he is going to throw 200 innings this year — almost double his single-season career high of 111 1/3.

“It’s gonna be different,” Lopez said. “You have to make sure that if what you did last year worked, you have to make sure that you’re doing a little bit more, or that you are more aware of how your body’s reacting, how your body’s feeling to more throwing, more games. You have to be aware of if you might need to take a day off. ... The goal is the same: 32 or more regular season starts and then just keep it up, keep them going in the playoffs.”

Lopez projects to be near the top of the Marlins’ rotation with Sandy Alcantara. Elieser Hernandez and Sixto Sanchez are also expected to be part of the rotation with one of Trevor Rogers, Nick Neidert, Daniel Castano and Braxton Garrett getting the fifth spot to start the season.

Marlins manager Don Mattingly had noted several times that “everything kind of clicked together” for Lopez when the team returned for their second round of spring training following MLB’s three-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. That carried over into the season, and Lopez stepped up as the Marlins’ de-facto ace for half the regular season when Alcantara, Caleb Smith and Jose Urena were among the group of players who tested positive for COVID-19 after the first weekend of the season.

What are the next steps in Lopez’s development?

“It’s going to be about consistency now,” Mattingly said. “Continuing to improve, continuing to get better. His processes have always been good. He’s smart. He understands how studying and what he’s trying to do is just getting him to the point where he’s got everything put together.

“The improvements will look smaller,” Mattingly continued. “It was a big, big jump last year. I think now you’re going to see more the detailed things about his game just get better.”