LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 02: Teoscar Hernández #37 of the Los Angeles Dodgers at bat during a 4-0 win over the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium on June 02, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
The extreme highs and lows of budding Twins star Royce Lewis.
First, they threw a global pandemic at Royce Lewis, wiping out his (and every one else’s) minor league season in 2020 as baseball grappled with the impact of Covid-19.
Then they came for his ligaments and muscles: ACL tears in 2021 and 2022; oblique and hamstring injuries in 2023; and, cruelly, a quad injury just three innings into 2024.
On Tuesday, they came for Lewis again. And this time, worst of all, they might have taken (at least temporarily) his confident spirt.
Forced from a 5-3 victory over Detroit after experiencing tightness in his groin — an injury fittingly juxtaposed against a two-run double that helped the Twins win — the relentlessly upbeat Lewis sounded just as pessimistic as all the Twins fans who had taken to social media with memes and shouts when he left the game.
“This is out of my control. I have no idea. But probably not very optimistic, to be honest with you,” Lewis said after the game. “I’m praying, but it’s usually always horrible news.”
Lest you think Lewis is being overly dramatic, he unfortunately has a lot of recent evidence to back up that sentiment, as I talked about on Wednesday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
What had been a fairly normal progression for the first three years of his minor league career has turned into a five-season odyssey of extreme highs and lows for the 2017 No. 1 overall pick.
