KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After a couple of down weeks, Royce Lewis sounded hopeful on Friday afternoon.
Given the Minnesota Twins’ top priority should be getting Lewis back on track, his change in optimism could be a positive development at a time when the Twins, who lost 5-0 to the Kansas City Royals at Kaufmann Stadium, need it most.
Recently, the grind of a long, exhausting season seemingly caught up to Lewis. Whether discussing his disdain for playing second base or how tired he’s felt in his longest season since 2019, Lewis twice in the past month demonstrated something less than the plucky attitude he’s always featured.
But as he returned to Kauffman Stadium on Friday night for the first time since suffering a massive right quad injury on Opening Day that resulted in a 70-game absence, Lewis featured a different tone.
Rather than note what’s bugging him, Lewis focused on figuring out how to survive at a point in the season when everyone is tired. Whereas a few days earlier he complained he was “terrified” about a potential switch to second base, Lewis once again seemed to be more his happy-go-lucky self.
“I’ve learned a lot about getting pulled in different directions and how to manage and handle that,” Lewis said. “I feel like I’ve still come out on the other side well. It feels like it could be anything, good thing, bad thing, it doesn’t matter, it’s just being talked about a lot more. … I just feel like it’s a long year every year. My own version is a little challenging, but we’re good.”
Since he returned to the lineup on July 26 following a second stint on the injured list — he missed 22 games with a right adductor strain — Lewis has appeared in 38 of the team’s 40 contests. The current stretch is the longest Lewis has been able to stay healthy since spending the 2019 season at Double-A Pensacola.
Overall, Friday’s also was a career-high 62nd big-league game for Lewis, who simply hasn’t accrued much playing time.
His 2020 minor-league season was wiped out by the pandemic, a torn ACL cost him the 2021 campaign and a second blown-out knee limited Lewis to 46 games between the majors and minors in 2022. Even after returning from the second ACL injury in 2023, oblique and hamstring injuries limited Lewis to playing a combined 72 games.
The long stretch seems to have caught up to Lewis, who entering Friday was batting just .224/.244/.316 with one home run in 82 plate appearances dating back to Aug. 13.
But it was the recent comments made by Lewis about being tired and not wanting to switch to second base — a move the Twins want to make because they believe it makes them a more dangerous club with Jose Miranda starting at third — that caught the attention of his manager, Rocco Baldelli. Though Baldelli didn’t make comments to indicate it, privately he was frustrated with Lewis.
Yet when asked about Lewis’ state of mind and how to help the player unlock his positive mentality on Friday, Baldelli was extremely diplomatic. A team source said the manager’s diplomacy was the result of a productive discussion Baldelli and Lewis held Thursday in which the move to second base was one topic.
“It’s our responsibility to ask that question and to do our best to get the most out of our players,” Baldelli said. “Sometimes what a manager or staff member or even a teammate can do for a player can’t be measured, but can be effective in helping guys not physically but mentally more so than anything get ready and be ready to play. … It’s probably a little more challenging for Royce because he has less experience in late-season baseball than probably anybody else here due to him missing some time. That adjustment might be something that takes a little longer for him. I hope he figures it out quickly. But it’ll be a good test for him and I think he’s going to pass the test.”
With Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa still out of the lineup, getting Lewis back on track should be at the top of the Twins’ to-do list. When healthy and happy, Lewis has proven to be a tour-de-force, a player capable of carrying the offense. Even with his recent power outage, Lewis, who earlier in the week joked he’s become a “singles hitter,” entered Friday averaging a home run every 13.5 at-bats.
Perhaps it’s a good sign that even as he acknowledged how tiring the season can be, Lewis spoke with optimism about surviving and thriving.
“The main challenge is going through the grind of a season for the first time being healthy,” Lewis said. “(In the past) I’ve had a stop-and-go (seasons) and being able to come back all the time and feel like I’m fresh like it’s Opening Day every day. That’s been the most challenging part for this year, but it’s the most opportunistic part as well because I’ve been able to power through and fight through these things. It’s part of the game, and it’s a big part that if you come out the other side of, no one’s going to be able to stop you again.”
Masseycred. pic.twitter.com/LWlBuirj0v
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) September 7, 2024
Royals top Twins 5-0 in opener
Kansas City moved a half-game in front of the Twins in the wild-card race on Friday night after Cole Ragans and three relievers combined on a four-hit shutout in a 5-0 victory.
Twice in the first three innings did the Twins mount a threat against Ragans only to come up empty.
The Twins had a pair of two-out singles in the first inning but Kyle Farmer flew out to end the threat. Then in the fourth inning, Farmer singled and Austin Martin doubled with two outs with Farmer getting easily thrown out at home to end the inning.
From that point on, Kansas City pitchers retired 15 of 16 batters.
“When you get 22 games left in the season, every game is important when you’re in the hunt for the division or the wild-card spot,” Farmer said. “They definitely outplayed us today. … Those guys pitched really well. They were hitting their spots and they pitched really well. They didn’t make many mistakes. The few hits we got were mistakes. That’s what happens.”
The Royals took a 1-0 lead in the third inning on a Tommy Pham RBI double. They added another run in the fourth on a Michael Massey solo homer off Zebby Matthews and tacked on two in the fifth on Hunter Renfroe’s two-out, two-run single.
Matthews allowed four earned runs and nine hits in five innings for the Twins.
Ragans struck out seven, allowing four hits in six innings. James McArthur, Sam Long and John Schreiber each pitched scoreless innings to close out the shutout.
Et cetera
The Twins at long last are moving Louie Varland to the bullpen, Baldelli said. The Twins hope Varland can help reduce the workload of some of the team’s back-end relievers, a move Baldelli would have liked to enact months ago but couldn’t because the Twins needed the right-hander for starting pitching depth. Working as the team’s bulk pitcher, Varland threw 59 pitches in 2 2/3 innings on Wednesday, allowing eight earned runs after retiring the first six batters he faced. After moving to the bullpen late in the 2023 season, Varland struck out 17 batters and posted a 1.50 ERA in 12 innings. … Buxton (right hip inflammation) is working out at Target Field and will be evaluated sometime this weekend. Buxton was set to rejoin the Twins in Kansas City on Friday but felt hip soreness during his second at-bat in Wednesday’s Triple-A game, a strikeout after which he was ejected for arguing with the umpire about a pitch clock violation.
(Photo of Royce Lewis: Kim Klement Neitzel / USA Today)
