Yeah, I looked him up after the incident and was actually surprised how long he's been in the league, considering he's had 1 good 48 inning run with Baltimore in 2022 that got him an invite to the All-Star Game, after which Baltimore knew they were playing with house money and dumped him at the top of his market for Yennier Cano (an upgrade in the bullpen since) AND a bunch of prospects.
Reminded me of Luis Tiant throwing his glove in the crowd after getting pulled from a game during his stint with the Yankees.
Luis was an old-grizzled vet by then, and had a lot of leeway on an already pretty combustible Yankees team of that time period.
Lopez is also an older vet, but looking at his lifetime stats, he was lucky to even have a job. He's got a lifetime 5.42 ERA in 9+ seasons of work. Take out his 48 good innings with the Orioles and it's even worse then that.
His minor league stats aren't much better, outside of 1 good season he had as a starter in AA ball.
He must be one of those guys who has "Good Stuff", which keeps teams bringing him back, thinking they can "fix" him.
I'm suspicious of anybody who gets the "Calling it like he sees it" moniker attached to them. They're mostly narcissistic, reactionary numbskulls with bad ideas and worse tempers. I like to call it the "Sober Drunk Uncle Syndrome".
Worst case scenario is when "Sober Drunk Uncle", actually gets drunk on top of it. That's a recipe for a ruined Thanksgiving dinner and family members fist-fighting each other in the front yard.
I'll be curious if Lopez just threw away any semblance of a future MLB career, or if somebody else will pick him up to see if the can "fix" him.
I suspect he may not be good enough to gain forgiveness (or trust) from the rest of the league.