MINNEAPOLIS -- Royce Lewis, the Minnesota Twins’ No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 amateur draft who batted over .300 in his first taste of the major leagues this season, has been lost for the season, again, to an injury to his right knee.
“It sucks, right?” Lewis said Friday before the Twins started a three-game series against Tampa Bay.
Lewis, 23, missed all of last season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during a spring drill but was ready by spring training and started this season at Class AAA St. Paul. He has a partial tear in that reconstructed ligament and will miss an estimated 12 months after surgery, which has yet to be scheduled.
Lewis opted for surgery after getting a second opinion, and a second magnetic resonance imaging exam on the knee this week.
“I’m not afraid of the surgery, that’s for sure,” he said. “It’s just another pause in my timeline.”
Lewis, a shortstop by trade and the presumptive heir to Carlos Correa, was playing in center field when he was injured making a catch at the wall in the third inning of a 7-3 victory over Kansas City on May 29 at Target Field. He said he mistimed his jump, leaping about 5 feet in front of the wall, and felt the knee buckle when he made contact.
Lewis stayed in the field for the rest of the inning but didn’t return. The initial diagnosis was a bone bruise and what Lewis called “thinning” of the ligament. Given the option to rehab the injury and perhaps play with a brace, Lewis instead sought a second opinion and opted for surgery.
“It didn’t make sense for me to play on a bum knee,” he said. “That would make more sense at the end of my career, but I’m at the beginning.”
In his first stint in the majors May 8-17, Lewis hit .308 with two home runs — including a grand slam — and five runs batted in while filling in for Correa. When Correa returned from a hand injury, the Twins sent Lewis back to St. Paul and had him start playing left field, center field and third base so he could help the major league team.
But in his first game back with the Twins, and first anywhere but shortstop in the majors, he was hurt while making a highlight catch.
Asked if he had any regrets about playing in the outfield, something he has done during his minor career, Lewis said no. Shortstop is his favorite position and, he thinks, his future, “But I play baseball.”
This will be the third season that Lewis will miss the majority of. He missed last season with the first knee injury, and was limited to practicing with the Twins taxi squad in 2020 after Major League Baseball canceled the minor league season because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I have new goals to be set,” he said. “I was in the middle of doing that, but this is just a pause.”
It remains unclear where Lewis will do the majority of his rehab; the Twins prefer players to work at the team’s complex in Fort Myers, Fla., where there are always coaches and trainers. Until he’s ready for rehab, Lewis said, he will remain with the major league club.
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