Javier Lopez’s loyalty remains undying to the San Francisco Giants, even though the front office gave him the boot this offseason.
“They kind of all told us that we weren’t coming back,” Lopez told Murph and Mac on Tuesday from Scottsdale. “And that’s just how it is.”
Lopez, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla — all three important pieces that won the ball club championships — were sent packing. The Giants blew 32 saves last season including a free fall ninth inning against the Cubs that eliminated them for the postseason. Lopez announced his retirement earlier this month.
But Lopez has decided to stay around, and will work as an instructor during spring training and will serve as broadcaster for CSN filling in for Mike Krukow on the road.
“I had already made peace with that, that wasn’t the big issue. I wanted to keep playing, obviously i didn’t like the way everything ended. There was only a select number of teams I wanted to go to. There were some chances early in the offseason, but then, even those teams started making some different kinds of moves and picking up some younger guys. That’s when, I should say, the teams got limited at that point. There was some opportunity, but I just didn’t see myself in those uniforms in those cities.”
Two weeks ago, much was made about Romo signing with the Dodgers. KNBR’s Duane Kuiper said it wouldn’t be ‘friendly’ when Romo reunited against the black and orange. But a day later, Romo sent passionate text messages to Paulie Mac about his love for the Giants organization and that he harbored no ill feelings toward the team or its fans.
“It’s the team he grew up rooting for,” Lopez said of the Dodgers. “It’s his dad’s favorite team. It keeps on the West Coast, I know his whole family is out here. I know he had opportunities going east. As a guy who has done the bi-coastal thing, it’s tough. It’s really tough. It affords him an opportunity to stay close to home. It’s obviously going to stick in the crawl of a lot of Giants’ fans. And I understand that. And it should. But ultimately it’s the way free agency works nowadays.
We’ll look forward to more insightful nuggets from Lopez’s broadcasting work this season.