From 88 to 97: Reynaldo López cranks up the heat

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman's Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ATLANTA -- Reynaldo López was just playing with us, right? That’s the question I casually asked the Braves pitcher as I passed his locker on Sunday morning.

López laughed and provided a succinct and logical answer.

“When you’re trying to fix something, you don’t throw as hard,” López said. “That’s how you get hurt.”

In other words, when López’s fastball was sitting between 88-89 mph during the final stages of his last Spring Training start on March 22 in Fort Myers, Fla., he was already starting to make the mechanical adjustments that allowed him to look more like the 2024 All-Star version of himself against the Royals on Saturday night.

López limited Kansas City to one run over six-plus innings, and his four-seamer averaged 94.4 mph during this impressive season debut.

So, what mechanical adjustment created this significant velocity increase just six days later?

“It was rather simple," López said. “I think it was the left shoulder and the left hip just opening up a little early. So, my focal point was just to try to stay closed.”

Yeah, it can be that simple. López simply dialed it down while feeling uncomfortable with his mechanics during that last Spring Training outing against the Twins. He basically went to the driving range, adjusted his swing and then turned a bunch of 200-yard drives into a bunch of 250-275 yard shots when he hit the course a few days later.

“We weren't sure what to expect, but he convinced us that he was good and he was going to be good and he was,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said after Saturday’s 6-2 win over the Royals. “He was outstanding.”

Pitch count is a number that is often highlighted when a pitcher is building endurance. But back when Greg Maddux was throwing 17-20 pitches over two innings and opting not to take his Grapefruit League season debuts any longer, he would always talk about the importance of preparing yourself by working within an additional inning with every Spring Training start.

There’s just something about mentally preparing yourself to pitch in the fourth, fifth or sixth inning for the first time.

López didn’t complete as many as five innings during any of this year’s spring starts and he completed just five innings in the lone start he made before undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder last year. So, before Saturday, he hadn’t pitched in the seventh inning since May 20, 2024.

Still, it made perfect sense to allow López to get at least one more up-down, just to mentally and physically acquaint himself with pitching in the seventh. He threw just 76 pitches through six innings, and he maintained his velocity throughout the outing. His four-seamer averaged 94.6 mph in the first and 94.1 mph in the sixth.

“His pitch count was still intact,” Weiss said. “He hadn't had seven ups yet. So, that was his seventh one. The plan was to go out and get [Salvador] Perez. That was the only hitter he was going to face. We didn't plan on Perez hitting the homer.”

López's fastball touched 97.1 mph against Perez in the fourth inning, and a 97-mph heater resulted in a Bobby Witt Jr. lineout in the third. Just three of his fastballs were clocked below 93 mph. This included his slowest heater of the night, the 92.1 mph four-seamer that Perez lined over the left-center-field wall to begin the seventh.

Though the final matchup didn’t go as desired, López’s outing was exactly what he and the Braves needed. Good news regarding the Braves' rotation has seemingly been as rare as hitting a walk-off grand slam in your debut with a team, something Atlanta fans also had a chance to celebrate Saturday night.