MINOR LEAGUES / GARY KLEIN : Catcher Lopez Took Advice to Heart and Plate

It was only a minor adjustment for a player coming off major knee surgery, but the tip helped Rene Lopez get on track in his first professional season.

Lopez, a catcher, was drafted in the eighth round by the Minnesota Twins last year out of Harbor College. One of only two community college players invited to the U.S. Olympic team tryouts, Lopez’s 1992 season at Harbor had ended abruptly when he tore three ligaments in his left knee during a collision at home plate.

Lopez missed the Olympic trials and all of what would have been his first professional season after signing with the Twins. After months of physical therapy, he opened this season with Ft. Wayne (Ind.), the Twins’ affiliate in the single-A Midwest League.

He was batting only .209 two weeks ago when Ft. Wayne Manager Jim Dwyer suggested that Lopez eliminate movement in his arms before swinging. Lopez did so and the results were staggering.

That night in a game against Beloit (Wis.), he hit for the cycle. The next game he went six for six and established a league record for reaching base with a hit in 10 consecutive at-bats.

“I had been hitting the ball hard, but the hits weren’t falling,” Lopez said. “Everything has been going great since I made that little adjustment.”

Lopez, 21, is playing every day for Ft. Wayne. He usually catches three games in a row and is the designated hitter for a game before resuming his catching duties. He is batting .264 with two home runs and 26 runs batted in 182 at-bats.

“When I hurt my knee, I thought it was the end of my career,” said Lopez, who had signed a letter of intent with Pepperdine. “The scouts stopped calling me and I didn’t think I would ever be drafted.

“But the Twins had their doctors check me out and they just told me to concentrate on getting ready for this season. I started doing everything about two months before they wanted me to because I didn’t want to be any further behind.”

Lopez is in his third year as a catcher. He was a shortstop at Bell High and played third base his first season at Harbor. During a summer league game before his sophomore year, the regular catcher did not show up and the coach asked Lopez to get behind the plate.

“I was really raw back there, but I threw out a couple guys that first game and stuck with it the rest of the summer,” Lopez said. “The next season at Harbor, scouts were saying, ‘Who’s that?’ ”

Lopez said his knee gave him problems at the start of this season when temperatures in the Midwest were in the 30s, but the pain is gone now that the weather has warmed up.

“The hardest thing to get used to was hitting against guys that are 21 or 22 who have been out playing a few years,” Lopez said. “One of my very first games, we faced a guy that was throwing 95 m.p.h. There are a lot more power pitchers here than then are in junior college.”

Lopez is hoping a strong season will help him jump to double-A next season.

“This is really only the beginning of my first season, so I have to try and stay strong all the way through August,” he said. “So far, it’s going well. The adjustment I made in my swing has really helped. I just want to keep it going.”