Comment # 10 on bug 984778 from Tony Mechelynck

"zypper lu -t package -t patch" announced an incoming kernel patch, so I tried
"zypper up -t patch -t package". Both commands warned me about a necessary
reboot, and the update command finished with exit status 102
(ZYPPER_EXIT_INF_REBOOT_NEEDED) so I shall now reboot after making sure that my
boot loader points to the new kernel-default.

I expect this RFE to be RESOLVED in some forthcoming update for openSUSE Leap
42.2 on all platforms, but of course this workaround applies to any already
deployed version of zypper, provided only that it supports multiple -t or
--type arguments to the up (update) command.