Top Tigers #77: Aurelio Lopez
By Blake VandeBunte • Dec 30th, 2008 • Category: Aurelio Lopez, Top 100 Tigers- Rank: 77
- Name: Aurelio Alejandro (Rios) Lopez
- Position: Pitcher
- Tigers Tenure: 1979-1985
- Awards: Seventh in Cy Young voting (1979), All Star (1983)
- Best Season: 1984. Lopez had more than one great season out of the Tigers bullpen, however, the Tigers championship in 1984 gives this season the edge. Lopez was the primary set up man to Cy Young closer Willie Hernandez. Lopez had a record of 10-1 and added 14 saves. While most set up men today pitch around 60-80 innings, Lopez was a horse out of the bullpen and racked up 137.2 innings in 71 appearances. In addition to his strong regular season, Lopez threw six scoreless innings and got the win in the World Series clinching win over the San Diego Padres.
- Good Stuff: Lopez was terrific out of the Tigers pen for a number years, not just the 1984 season. In 1979 he posted an ERA+ of 181 and saved 21 games for the Tigers. He was known has “Senor Smoke” and even though he threw hard, he was very durable, ranking amongst the league leader in games pitched on three occasions. Also, in four of his seasons with the Tigers he threw over 100 innings, you just don’t see that out of relief pitchers any more. Lopez was a terrific closer for the Tigers before Hernandez arrived and was an even better set up man when he role changed. This is the sort of guy the Tigers need now.
- Bad Stuff: Hard to find much bad with Senor Smoke during his tenure in Detroit. While Lopez was great and threw a lot of innings in most seasons, he did miss big chunks of the 1981 and 1982 seasons with injuries. In 1985 all of the miles on Lopez’s arm appeared to take their toll. Lopez threw 86.1 innings but had an ERA of 4.80 (ERA+ 85) by far the worst marks during his time with the Tigers.
- Place In Tigers History: Lopez will be remembered in Tiger history for his contributions on that 1984 team. Lopez was the essentially the Joel Zumaya of the 1984 Tigers and we can all clearly remember how much Zumaya meant to the 2006 team. Sadly, Lopez died in a car crash in Mexico in 1992, just a day after celebrating his 44th birthday.
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Blake VandeBunte is a posting fiend.
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all the more amazing is that he pitched in ‘84 at the age of 36 - significant because it was the pre-steroids era and sports fitness/mechanics knowledge was not as advanced then as it is now.
Thanks, that’s a really good point. I was surprised that he got such a late start in the Major Leagues. He first appeared in the bigs in 1974 but wasn’t really a full time player until he joined the Tigers.
If you really want to get an appreciation for how often & how well lopez pitched for the ‘84 team check out his game log:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cgi?n1=lopezau01&t=p&year=1984
It’s amazing to see how many back to back games he pitched and many times pitching 3+ innings.