Lewis overcomes injuries to become key Twins piece
MINNEAPOLIS » After Royce Lewis left a game with a hamstring injury in the penultimate week of the season, the Minnesota Twins rookie could have lamented yet another injury.
Instead, he took the glass-half-full approach.
“At least it's not a knee where I'm going to be out 12 months, guaranteed,” Lewis said. “So there's a lot worse that could happen. I'm just glad I have an opportunity to still be here with the team and have a chance to play in the playoffs.”
After tearing his ACL in back-to-back seasons in what has been an injury-ravaged career so far, Lewis wasn't going to allow himself to be too upset with a hamstring tweak.
He is expected to be available, perhaps just as the DH, when the American League Central champion Twins open their best-of-three AL wild-card series against the sixthseeded Toronto Blue Jays today in Minnesota.
Lewis is one of the main reasons the Twins made it to the playoffs. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 draft out of JSerra High in San Juan Capistrano, Lewis hit .309 with 15 homers and a .921 OPS. Four of his home runs were grand slams, three of them coming between Aug. 27 and Sept. 15.
“It's just surreal right now watching him do his thing,” Twins pitcher Bailey Ober said after Lewis' last grand slam. “He loves this game so much, and you can see it when he's out there. He loves playing and seems to find the moment every single time he's up there, and he's coming through right now.”
Lewis already has five career grand slams in just 280 major league plate appearances. For comparison, Mike Trout has six grand slams in 6,521 plate appearances.
Lewis said he only hit two in his life before coming to the majors, one in high school and one in Class-A.
“I've had just a couple, man,” Lewis said. “Now all of a sudden it's starting to happen a little bit more often. And I'm only blessed because my teams put me in such great situations.”
If Lewis is feeling “blessed” by the basesloaded opportunities he's had lately, it might just be the universe balancing for how much he had been “cursed” previously in his career.
After the Twins drafted him as a shortstop, Lewis moved slowly, but steadily, through the farm system. His numbers didn't live up to his potential until he won the MVP of the Arizona Fall League as a 20-year-old in 2019.
Lewis would have been primed to reach the big leagues sometime in 2020, but the entire minor league season was lost to the pandemic.
When he was undergoing his physical at the start of spring training in 2021, Lewis was diagnosed with a torn ACL. His knee began hurting during offseason drills and got worse when he slipped on some ice.
Lewis needed a year to come back from surgery, but he opened 2022 in Triple-A and posted a .993 OPS in 24 games, earning a quick promotion for his major league debut on May 6.
Lewis was playing center field on May 29 — the Twins were experimenting with him at different positions because they had signed Carlos Correa to play shortstop — when he crashed into the fence making a catch, and it was later diagnosed as another torn ACL.
The two surgeries were just 15 months apart.
“Just so unlucky,” Lewis said last week. “Unfortunate. The timing of it was obviously just kind of tough. It's all part of the game. You just got to keep working hard to get back. Once you get back, try not to have those situations happen. But they're freak injuries. If they do happen, you just gotta overcome them.”
After a quick rehab assignment, Lewis was back in the majors exactly a year after the second ACL tear. He played a month and then suffered an oblique injury. After missing six weeks, he came back and was on fire at the plate for another month until the recent hamstring tweak.
“It's super frustrating because you can't control it,” Lewis said of the injuries. “If you could, obviously I'd love to be out there every single day. I love this game too much to be away. I hate it, but it's part of the game.”
In between all of the injuries, Lewis has become a favorite of Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, teammates and fans for his energy, enthusiasm and performance.
“He's electric,” Correa told reporters. “He's super athletic. He's a special talent and I get to watch from the first row, so it's amazing to see.”
Baldelli said Lewis has had many “wow-type games,” and they aren't simply when he hits a homer. It's the way he lays off tough pitches and hits others.
“He's been able to do different things with his swing decisions that I think have put him in a position to just keep succeeding,” Baldelli told reporters.
It's no surprise to Angels outfielder Jo Adell. They became friends while playing with and against each other at various stops from high school through the Arizona Fall League. Adell was the No. 10 pick in 2017, when Lewis was No. 1.
“I always knew he was a baller, man,” Adell said. “Back in our class, he was one of the best players. To see him battle (the injuries), I knew once he came out of it, he was gonna be a guy. Obviously, now he's trying to get back to 100%. To come see him tear it up, I'm proud of him. Baseball's got something to look forward to for a while from him.”