Pablo Lopez has made big adjustments over his professional pitching career. The big ones, no surprises, came when he moved to high-A ball as a 20-year-old in 2017 in Modesto, Calif., and then throughout his first full major league season in 2019 in Miami.

At that point, the right-hander was adjusting to the uptick in competition. But 2022 was different. He got out of whack, then got really out of whack.

“I tried to do too much at some point, and it went from a little out of synch to a lot out of synch,” the Twins’ No. 1 starter said Wednesday. “Because I was doing too many things that I wasn’t used to.”

That’s not the case now, despite the fact that Lopez has struggled over his past three starts — 0-3 with a 9.00 earned-run average and 25 hits in 16 innings pitched. He spent his bullpen session before Wednesday night’s game against the Kansas City Royals at Target Field working on one thing.

“I went back to recovering some kind of rhythm on the mound,” he said afterward.

On May 9, Lopez was 4-2 with a 3.02 ERA, 55 strikeouts and eight walks in 48 innings. Since then, something has been off with his mechanics, specifically his movement above the rubber.

“Things were happening a little earlier than they should,” he said. “And this goes back to what feels right for me. Every pitcher is different. Our windups all look different, but our windups are all the same — we’re transferring power from one leg to the other.

“But we have different cues. One of my cues is slow and in control, give myself time, let it all happen at the end. And it looks like it was happening a little before the end.”

Lopez, 28, has become one of the majors’ most consistent starting pitchers. Last season, he threw 194 innings for the American League Central champs, going 11-9 with a 3.66 ERA and fanning 234, third in the majors. After the 2022 season, the Twins acquired him from the Marlins, sending Miami reigning AL batting champ Luis Arraez.

Almost immediately, Minnesota signed Lopez to a four-year, $73.5 million extension through 2027.

“I wanted to feel today that I wasn’t rushing, that I was giving myself enough time to build steam,” Lopez said after Wednesday’s session. “So, I’m building steam, I’m loading to then unload, and I wanted to unload at the right time. For me, that’s when I feel this foot landing firmly. That’s when I let go of the steam, when I step on the gas.”

Lopez is scheduled to start Friday in the opener of a three-game series at Houston.

Buxton rests

Center fielder Byron Buxton was given a day off on Wednesday after going 2 for 2 with a triple, two walks, stolen base and run scored in a 4-2 victory over the Royals on Tuesday.

Through one-third of the Twins’ season, Buxton has played in 37 of the team’s 58 games after knee and hip injuries limited him to 85 total games last season. After being limited to designated hitting in 2023, he has played 31 games in center.

“I look at the week when I’m looking at what Buck is going to be out there for,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He has been playing good. He had a great day yesterday. He wants to be out there seven days a week. Right now he won’t be out there seven days a week, but we’ll get him out there as much as we can. He’s doing well.”

Briefly

Third baseman Royce Lewis, on rehab assignment for a quad injury with Class AAA St. Paul, was not in the starting lineup for Wednesday’s game in Buffalo. He was hurt in the Twins’ first game this season after going 2 for 2 with a home run. … The Twins are in the middle of their third annual “Twins Week of Service,” during which members of all six baseball organizations volunteer to help for underserved communities.

Related Articles

Twins hold off Kansas City for sixth win in seven games

Twins current and past speak well of retired MLB umpire Angel Hernandez

Twins play a man down after Castillo doesn’t arrive in time

Ryan goes seven strong innings; Larnach and Miranda homer in Twins’ 6-5 win over Royals

Twins’ Jhoan Duran in ‘good spot’ after mechanical adjustment

The last remaining stoplight on Minnesota Highway 36 between Stillwater and Century Avenue will be replaced with a $40 million grade-separated interchange with buttonhook-style ramps in 2027, officials announced this week.

More than 170 accidents have occurred at the intersection of 36 and Lake Elmo Avenue over the past 10 years, including a fatal crash in 2018. An average of 45,000 vehicles pass through the intersection each day.

Construction will start in the spring of 2026, said Andrew Giesen, project manager for Washington County Public Works.

The new grade-separated interchange will improve safety, reduce congestion and improve bikeability and walkability in the area, Giesen said.

The project team includes Washington County, the city of Grant, the city of Lake Elmo and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Officials conducted an intersection study and evaluated more than 20 different possible interchanges, including at-grade and grade-separated options, Giesen said. The buttonhook-style ramps will provide full access to Minnesota 36 through frontage roads and dedicated acceleration and deacceleration lanes along the state highway, he said.

“It’s a significant safety improvement,” he said. “This design rose to the top because it’s the ‘right-fit’ design for the intersection. We achieve the project goals and minimize the overall project cost by minimizing the purchase of necessary private property and minimizing the overall project footprint.”

A rendering showing the design of a planned $40 million grade-separated interchange with buttonhook-style ramps that will be built at Minnesota Highway 36 and Lake Elmo Avenue. Officials unveiled the new design on Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (Courtesy of Washington County)

Drivers no longer will be able to turn directly from one road to the other. When the new alignment is in place, they’ll get access through frontage roads and dedicated acceleration and deacceleration lanes along the state highway.

Robert Bursik, 54, of Amery, Wis., died in February 2018 on Minnesota 36 after he was struck by a semitrailer that sped through a red light in Lake Elmo.

Officials say Samuel Hicks, 29, of Independence, Wis., was looking at his cellphone for eight seconds before he slammed into Bursik’s car at 63 mph while it was stopped at Lake Elmo Avenue.

EARLIER: Trucker who rear-ended car in Lake Elmo, killing driver, apologizes in new video

According to the criminal complaint, Hicks was texting with his girlfriend and using the Zillow real estate app to look up information about a house.

For more information about the road project, go to www.co.washington.mn.us/LakeElmoAvenue.

Related Articles

Minnesota man sentenced for soliciting minor to have sex with dog

Former Forest Lake man severely burned in charging station explosion

Part of Stillwater prison remains on lockdown following weekend attack on corrections officers

As part of I-94 project, ramp closures set to begin this week along I-494 and Tamarack Road

Lake Elmo woman who was missing since Thursday night found safe, BCA says

By LOLITA C. BALDOR (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A string of security, logistical and weather problems has battered the plan to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza through a U.S. military-built pier.

Broken apart by strong winds and heavy seas just over a week after it became operational, the project faces criticism that it hasn’t lived up to its initial billing or its $320 million price tag.

U.S. officials say, however, that the steel causeway connected to the beach in Gaza and the floating pier are being repaired and reassembled at a port in southern Israel, then will be reinstalled and working again next week.

While early Pentagon estimates suggested the pier could deliver up to 150 truckloads of aid a day when in full operation, that has yet to happen. Bad weather has hampered progress getting aid into Gaza from the pier, while the Israeli offensive in the southern city of Rafah has made it difficult, if not impossible at times, to get aid into the region by land routes.

Aid groups have had mixed reactions — both welcoming any amount of aid for starving Palestinians besieged by the nearly eight-month-old Israel-Hamas war and decrying the pier as a distraction that took pressure off Israel to open more border crossings, which are far more productive.

It’s “a side-show,” said Bob Kitchen, a top official of the International Rescue Committee.

The Biden administration has said from the start that the pier wasn’t meant to be a total solution and that any amount of aid helps.

“Nobody said at the outset that it was going to be a panacea for all the humanitarian assistance problems that still exist in Gaza,” national security spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. “I think sometimes there’s an expectation of the U.S. military — because they’re so good — that everything that they touch is just going to turn to gold in an instant.”

“We knew going in that this was going to be tough stuff,” he added. “And it has proven to be tough stuff.”

Before the war, Gaza was getting about 500 truckloads of aid on average every day. The United States Agency for International Development says it needs a steady flow of 600 trucks a day to ease the struggle for food and bring people back from the brink of famine.

The aid brought through the pier was enough to feed thousands for a month, but U.N. data shows it barely made a dent in the overall need of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.

Here’s a look at the timeline of the pier, the problems it faced and what may come next:

MARCH: ANNOUNCEMENT AND PREP

MARCH 7: President Joe Biden announces his plan for the U.S. military to build a pier during his State of the Union address.

“Tonight, I’m directing the U.S. military to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large shipments carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters,” he said.

But even in those first few moments, he noted the pier would increase the amount of humanitarian aid getting into Gaza but that Israel “must do its part” and let more aid in.

MARCH 8: Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, tells reporters it will take “up to 60 days” to deploy the forces and build the project.

MARCH 12: Four U.S. Army boats loaded with tons of equipment and steel pier segments leave Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia and head to the Atlantic Ocean for what is expected to be a monthlong voyage to Gaza.

The brigade’s commander, Army Col. Sam Miller, warns that the transit and construction will be heavily dependent on the weather and any high seas they encounter.

LATE MARCH: U.S. Army vessels hit high seas and rough weather as they cross the Atlantic, slowing their pace.

APRIL: CONSTRUCTION AND HOPE

APRIL 1: Seven World Central Kitchen aid workers are killed in an Israeli airstrike as they travel in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel.

The strike fuels ongoing worries about security for relief workers and prompts aid agencies to pause delivery of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

APRIL 19: U.S. officials confirm that the U.N. World Food Program has agreed to help deliver aid brought to Gaza via the maritime route once construction is done.

APRIL 25: Major construction of the port facility on the shore near Gaza City begins to take shape. The onshore site is where aid from the causeway will be delivered and given to aid agencies.

APRIL 30: Satellite photos show the U.S. Navy ship USNS Roy P. Benavidez and Army vessels working on assembling the pier and causeway about 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from the port on shore.

MAY: THE PIER OPENS … THEN CLOSES

MAY 9: The U.S. vessel Sagamore is the first ship loaded with aid to leave Cyprus and head toward Gaza and ultimately the pier. An elaborate security and inspection station has been built in Cyprus to screen the aid coming from a number of countries.

MAY 16: Well past the 60-day target time, the construction and assembly of the pier off the Gaza coast and the causeway attached to the shoreline are finished after more than a week of weather and other delays.

MAY 17: The first trucks carrying aid for the Gaza Strip roll down the newly built pier and into the secure area on shore, where they will be unloaded and the cargo distributed to aid agencies for delivery by truck into Gaza.

May 18: Crowds of desperate Palestinians overrun a convoy of aid trucks coming from the pier, stripping the cargo from 11 of the 16 vehicles before they reach a U.N. warehouse for distribution.

May 19-20: The first food from the pier — a limited number of high-nutrition biscuits — reaches people in need in central Gaza, according to the World Food Program.

Aid organizations suspend deliveries from the pier for two days while the U.S. works with Israel to open alternate land routes from the pier and improve security.

MAY 24: So far, a bit more than 1,000 metric tons of aid has been delivered to Gaza via the U.S.-built pier, and USAID later says all of it has been distributed within Gaza.

MAY 25: High winds and heavy seas damage the pier and cause four U.S. Army vessels operating there to become beached, injuring three service members, including one who is in critical condition.

Two vessels went aground in Gaza near the base of the pier and two went aground near Ashkelon in Israel.

MAY 28: Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh says large portions of the causeway are being pulled from the beach and moved to an Israeli port for repairs. The base of the causeway remains at the Gaza shore.

She also says that aid in Cyprus is being loaded onto vessels and will be ready to unload onto the pier once it is back in place.

MAY 29: Two of the Army vessels that ran aground in the bad weather are now back at sea and the other two near the pier are being freed, with the aid of the Israeli navy.

WHAT’S NEXT?

In the coming days, the sections of the causeway will be put back together, and by the middle of next week will be moved back to the Gaza shore, where the causeway will once again be attached to the beach, the Pentagon says.

“When we are able to re-anchor the pier back in, you’ll be able to see that aid flow off in a pretty steady stream,” Singh said Tuesday. “We’re going to continue to operate this temporary pier for as long as we can.”

___

AP writer Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed.