Twins third baseman Royce Lewis ‘staying positive’ after latest injury

FORT MYERS, FLA. — Last year, Royce Lewis hit a home run and suffered a serious injury on Opening Day. He won’t get the chance to do either one this time.

Lewis has a moderate strain of his left hamstring, a magnetic resonance imaging exam taken Monday confirmed, and the Twins have ruled him out for the March 27 season opener at St. Louis. The third baseman suffered the injury as he ran out a ground ball during Sunday’s Grapefruit League game vs. Boston.

It’s too early to know how many games he will miss, the Twins said, since a course of treatment has yet to be settled upon. But the injury is not as serious, Lewis said, as the quadriceps injury that sidelined him until June 4 last year.

“Way different. Not even close. The [quad injury] in Kansas City, that one hurt,” Lewis said Monday. “It felt like a cramp, and yeah, that one really hurt. I remember I had trouble sleeping for nights afterward.”

This time?

“It just felt more like tightness in the moment. It got real tight,” Lewis said. “The natural reaction is to grab it. I was hobbling around, trying to stay off it. But nothing too crazy, to be honest. I was able to walk off on my own power.”

But that doesn’t mean he didn’t feel pain. It’s just that the pain was mostly mental, he said: Not again!

In the clubhouse after Sunday’s game, several of Lewis’ teammates sensed his anguish over being seriously hurt again, merely by running.

“Definitely not the best emotions. I was frustrated, bummed out. I just want a chance. Anyone in this room would say the same thing, they just want an opportunity,” said Lewis, who has been limited to only 152 games since making his major league debut in May 2022.

“To have that opportunity taken away not because of how you’re playing, but because of this — that’s hard. It’d be one thing if I’m struggling my way out of the lineup, but it’s another to be just not able to put myself in there.”

Lewis spent more than two hours at a Fort Myers clinic Monday to get the MRI that revealed the extent of his injury. Once complete, the Twins began evaluating the results and formulating a treatment plan.

Lewis, though, had phone calls to make — to his wife, his parents, his agent — to deliver the prognosis.

“Everyone hates this. No one wants this for anybody, but when you think of somebody 25 years old, doing everything they possibly can …" Lewis said, shaking his head.

His family “see it from behind the scenes, all the stuff I’m doing, investing in my body. A lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of energy going towards staying healthy, and unfortunately, it hasn’t been going my way yet. But it’ll come.”

Just not in time for the start of the 2025 season. How much will it hurt to not be a part of the hoopla in St. Louis?

“I’ve already had my road Opening Day [last year], so I’m good. We won that game. I hit a homer and we played well, so it was a great day,” Lewis said, before adding a touch of his ceaseless, perhaps sanguine, optimism. “And they didn’t rule out Opening Day at home [on April 3], so we’ll see. I’m staying positive.”