Numerous examples are easy to find if you know where to look for them.
As the season went on for the Kansas City Royals, they kept popping up more and more on social media — highlights of the latest defensive exploits by shortstop Nick Lopez.
Lopez, a 2013 Naperville Central graduate, has the numbers to back up a sparkling ability to make the spectacular look easy.
In 2020, he produced a .991 fielding percentage to finish second in the American League for second baseman. He shifted back to his natural position for 2021.
He had a banner year with the glove, leading all AL shortstops in fielding percentage at .987. He paced all of baseball in runs prevented with 19 and outs above average with 25.
A Gold Glove finalist at second base in 2020, he wasn’t even named as a finalist at shortstop in 2021.
Lopez knows he deserved better.
“Looking at my season and my numbers, I should win it,” he said. “It’s the Gold Glove. It’s based off your defense and all that. If you look at my numbers, it’s top in the league in all categories.”
Anyone who watched Lopez as far back as his high school days with the Redhawks wouldn’t be surprised by his defensive prowess.
Lessons learned by being sent down with less than a week left in spring training before coming back up before opening day served him well.
His return was necessitated by an injury to Adalberto Mondesi, and Lopez took the team’s advice about finding his 2018 form from the minors to heart.
Lopez made eye-opening strides at the plate, which boosts his case he prepares to go to arbitration with the Royals while getting ready for 2022.
He was hitting just .221 on May 27 after a 7-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.
From there — sticking to a set routine — things began to click as he hit significantly over .300 in each of the next four months.
“I was staying positive for the most part, which was something that didn’t really happen the last year,” Lopez said. “When things were going bad, I was negative. I wasn’t remaining positive. I was beating myself up. But I stayed positive knowing, if I stayed to my routine, it’s eventually going to work. And it did.
“I caught fire. I started adjusting to pitchers. I started looking for what they were going to throw me, how they planned on throwing me, and then I got very confident. Once I was playing every single day, once they gave me shortstop, once I saw my name in the lineup every single day, I remained very, very confident. I think confidence, in baseball, is one of the biggest things you can have.”
Lopez ended the year exactly at .300, good for the team lead, fifth in the American League and tied with Freddie Freeman for 14th in MLB.
In the course of leading the team in hitting, Lopez became the first shortstop in franchise history to hit .300 in a season.
“Given how many shortstops this organization has had, given how many years this organization has been around, it’s pretty special,” he said. “Given where I started, where this season was headed, to be able to do that, to climb all the way back to that, it’s a pretty cool story.
“I take a lot of pride in that story. I take a lot of pride in that season.”
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Part of that story includes helping to raise money for the Justin Wegner Foundation. Lopez will be appearing at Dean’s Dugout in Naperville on Monday, Nov. 8.
And as far as that Gold Glove is concerned?
Consider it the next thing on Lopez’s to-do list.
Blake Baumgartner is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.