Yet Again, Royce Lewis’ Hot Streak Succeeded By an Ill-Timed Injury

“He could be great, if he could only stay healthy.”

What current or former MLB player comes to mind when you see that sentence? Current day Mike Trout of the Angels? Remember how great the Indians’ Grady Sizemore was to start his career before injuries derailed everything?

How about one of the most famous examples, the Yankees’ Don Mattingly. A potential Hall of Fame career was turned into a “just” a very good one after chronic back problems affected him for years.

Injuries affect hundreds of players of various talent levels every year, some worse than others. One can only imagine how frustrating it must be for those players to deal with, especially the ones who experience them over the course of multiple seasons, like the examples above.

A recent example of a player who has worked his way through multiple injury-plagued seasons even earlier in his career is Royce Lewis of the Minnesota Twins. It’s unfortunate considering the immense level of talent there.

Lewis was the top overall pick in the 2017 draft, selected ahead of players like Hunter Greene, MacKenzie Gore, and Trevor Rogers. Twins fans immediately started dreaming of the day he would begin contributing for the parent club.

As a prep bat selection, it would be some years before Lewis would be ready for the majors. But the numbers were solid at each level of the minors and there was little doubt that he would eventually be playing in Minnesota.

The first major bite by the injury bug happened in 2021 when Lewis missed the entire season with an ACL injury. He would return the following season to make his MLB debut, but a different knee injury would limit him to just 46 games between the minors and majors.

Lewis would be limited to 58 games in 2023 (knee surgery recovery, oblique strain, hamstring strain) and 82 games in 2024 (quad strain, adductor strain). But with a .268 average and 128 wRC+ over those first three seasons when he did play, Twins fans couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he could only stay healthy.

After a slow start to 2025, Royce Lewis started again showing his huge potential.

That brings us to this season. Fans were about to see if this time Lewis could stay healthy and produce for Minnesota.

Well, things sure started on the wrong track. For starters, Lewis would start the season in a familiar place: the injured list. A hamstring injury would cause him to miss the first month of the season, delaying his season debut until May 6.

Then once he was healthy, the production wasn’t there. Lewis was absolutely awful in the month of May, slashing a disgusting .130/.200/.203 in 20 games. He had just three extra-base hits (two doubles and a homer), three RBIs, and 11 strikeouts to just six walks.

Was the spring injury still affecting him? Did he need to go down to Triple-A for a reset? Either way, that type of production wasn’t going to last in a big league lineup for long.

And then a funny thing happened. The calendar turned to June. And Lewis magically started hitting again.

It was only 10 games, but things turned completely around. Lewis slashed .367/.457/.533 to start off the month. He already matched his extra-base hits from May, doubled the RBIs, and had an even five strikeouts to walks. It took until the summer, but Lewis was finally looking the part.

Just as quickly as Lewis got hot, he was shut down due to injury yet again.

The good vibes could only last so long. In the ninth inning of a game against the Astros last Friday, Lewis hit a shot into the left field corner that might have normally been stretched into a double. Instead, he stopped at first and was lifted for a pinch runner.

On Saturday, an MRI revealed that he had injured the same hamstring that had him on the IL to start the season. By Sunday, he was back on the IL.

It continued a very unfortunate trend of Lewis hitting the IL right after heating up. He hit a solid .250 with a .786 OPS in spring training last year before going on the IL one game into the season. Then he was up to an even more impressive .292 average and 1.039 OPS on the year before being shelved again in July.

The same was the case in 2023. After finally getting to debut on May 29, Lewis was at a .326 average and .828 OPS by July 1 before his oblique strain caused him to miss the next month and a half.

As frustrating as it is for fans to watch, it is nowhere close to as frustrating as it must be for Lewis to continue to suffer these setbacks. It must be even worse that it keeps happening right after he starts to get rolling.

One would hope that the law of averages will eventually allow Lewis to stay on the field for an extended period of time. Even the injury bug needs to take a day off, after all. And it would give Twins fans the chance to see whether Lewis can be great, if he could only stay healthy.