Lopez, Naperville Central grad, Royals' 2B hoping MLB season starts soon

When Nicky Lopez required knee surgery during his sophomore baseball season at Creighton, he felt like the sport he was born to play had been taken away.

The fierce competitor missed a total of three days.

Caught now in something beyond his wildest nightmares, the Kansas City Royals second baseman and Naperville Central graduate is nursing similar emotions after missing several weeks of his first full season in Major League Baseball due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hunkered down near Kansas City's spring training facility in Surprise, Ariz., and rooming with Royals ace Brad Keller, Lopez anxiously awaits the restart of the season. They're not allowed inside, but they can access the outdoor fields.

"Those three days that I had (at Creighton), I felt like I was going nuts," he said. "This is a little different. This is much longer and I'd be lying if I say I wasn't going crazy, but I will have a greater appreciation toward it once it's back."

The Royals' scheduled opener was slated to be in Chicago. If his first trip as a player to Guaranteed Rate Field was any indication - when the White Sox ticket office created a "Nicky Lopez package" to accommodate nearly 500 friends and family who came out to watch him play - it was going to be a memory to last a lifetime.

Last year Lopez didn't break spring training with the Royals, but he didn't stay at Triple-A Omaha for long. On May 12 he got the call up to the bigs, and two days later he made his MLB debut at Kauffmann Stadium with a hit, walk and RBI.

The disappointment of missing the start of this season remains, but he also knows shutting down the sport was the right decision.

"Yeah, it was really disappointing," said Lopez, who became the first Naperville Central graduate to play in the majors. "But obviously there's bigger stuff that we have to worry about. This is bigger than us and bigger than baseball."

Lopez, a 2013 graduate of Naperville Central, was drafted in the fifth round by the Royals after his junior year at Creighton. Each year since he steadily rose through the minor league system, from rookie ball at Burlington to Advanced-A Wilmington to Double-A Northwest Arkansas and finally Omaha.

Every step along the way - a good career at a respected high school program, becoming the highest-drafted player out of Creighton since 1999, being drafted by the defending World Series champions at a time when they were preparing to promote from within - worked in his favor.

"It started at a young age and it was something I instilled in my brain that, 'I'm going to make it,' " he said. "'I have a dream of playing professional baseball and I'm not going to stop until I get there.'"

Last season Lopez hit .240 but batted .276 the final two months. He played most of his games at second base but also played 30-plus games at shortstop, flashing strong defense no matter where he was.

Lopez spent the off-season in Arizona to work out and get on the Royals' fitness and nutrition plan to add 15 pounds of muscle. He was stinging the ball in spring training, hitting .360 in 10 games before everything shut down.

If anyone was ready for the season to begin, it was Lopez.

"I took two or three weeks off after the season, but then I hit it hard," he said. "I was very focused this off-season. I was ready and the team was ready. When it picks back up I know we'll be ready again."

Lopez longs for baseball's return. Every at-bat and grounder is valuable when you're 25 years old and trying to develop and establish yourself.

Encouraging news emerged this week when reports raised the possibility of games by July, but right now there are still too many unknowns.

But if a return requires being in quarantine, that's fine with Lopez.

If it means wearing a mask while playing, that's fine with Lopez.

Like so many others, he just wants baseball back.

"It's something that we all take for granted," he said. "It's crazy how something you love can be taken away so fast.

"Tell me when and where we've got to go, and I'll do it," he said. "Whatever they need to do to get us going."

Twitter: @kevin_schmit