Twins third baseman Royce Lewis likely to miss six weeks because of oblique strain

After Royce Lewis recovered from two knee surgeries, which cost him almost all of the past two seasons, an oblique strain will sideline him for at least the next month.

Lewis was initially diagnosed with a grade two oblique strain as he awaited the full results from a magnetic resonance imaging exam Monday. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the general timeline to recover from a grade two strain is six weeks.

The 24-year-old Lewis left Saturday's game in Baltimore after he strained his left oblique during his swing on a groundout. He was placed on the 10-day injured list Sunday.

"It felt like someone stabbed a knife in my back," Lewis said, "and it just kept getting worse and worse as I ran each step."

Lewis, the No. 1 pick in the 2017 MLB draft, immediately established himself as a key part of the Twins lineup when he was activated from the 60-day injured list at the end of May. He hit .326 in his first 26 games with four homers, 15 RBI and 11 runs.

Now the Twins will be without one of their most consistent hitters until potentially mid-August.

"You don't want to be hurt and just on the sidelines," said Lewis, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee twice. "At the same time, I can only control what I can control. I can't control whether I had an oblique [injury] or not. Now it's just where do I go from here? Just like the ACL. Knock on wood, this isn't a year. That definitely makes it a lot easier to deal with. Every other time I was on the IL, it was for a full year, and I had no control over how I could come back or not."

Jose Miranda was called up from St. Paul on Sunday and will see a lot of time at third base in Lewis' absence.

"On the offensive side, I think [Miranda] looks very much like the guy that we recognize, the guy that we saw here last year," Baldelli said.

With the amateur scouting department at Target Field this week, in preparation for the upcoming MLB draft, the Twins honored late Hall of Fame scout Mike Radcliff before Monday's game.

Radcliff served as the club's scouting director from 1994 to 2007, and he was the vice president of player personnel from 2007 to '23. He died Feb. 3 at 66 after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

"He meant everything to me," said Sean Johnson, the Twins scouting director. "Not only a mentor to me, but a lot of guys in our room. I spent so much time with him at the field because he'd be at the field as long as he could and as early as he could. Really, the life lessons away from the field, at dinner, on the road together, he was just the best."

Family members and scouts wore white visors in Radcliff's honor during the ceremony. Former general manager Terry Ryan gave a speech while Torii Hunter and Michael Cuddyer contributed video messages. Radcliff's grandson, Reece Kuchenrither, threw the ceremonial first pitch to Baldelli.

• Jorge Polanco took swings during batting practice and was scheduled to run sprints Monday as he recovers from his hamstring injury. He won't return to the Twins, Baldelli said, before he spends time on a rehab assignment.

• Twins pitching prospect Marco Raya, a 20-year-old righthander, was promoted to Class AA Wichita on Monday. Raya, ranked as the No. 7 prospect in the farm system by Baseball America, had a 2.94 ERA in 11 starts at Class A-Advanced with 39 strikeouts and eight walks across 33⅔ innings.

• Trevor Larnach hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning and the Saints, after being no-hit for five innings by Allan Winans, completed a six-game sweep of Gwinnett with a 6-4 victory at CHS Field. Kyle Garlick hit a tying three-run homer in the sixth inning, after Winans departed following a 58-minute rain delay..