Twins Slugger Royce Lewis Is Mashing at a Historic Pace

Tom Dierberger | Jun 22, 2024

Twins designated hitter Royce Lewis celebrates his two-run home run against the Colorado Rockies in the sixth inning at Target Field. / Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

Minnesota Twins third baseman Royce Lewis looks ready to take over Major League Baseball.

Lewis, the No. 1 pick by Minnesota in the 2017 MLB draft, announced his arrival to stardom last postseason by clobbering four home runs in six playoff games and helping the Twins snap their infamous 18-game postseason losing streak that dated back to 2004.

After suffering a quad strain on Opening Day this year and missing over two months of games, Lewis is healthy again and absolutely mashing. His impressive stats over his first two years—12 games in 2022 and 58 contests in '23 as he battled injuries—are beginning to compile into historic levels of slugging. The small sample size is not all that small now.

After going 2-for-5 in the Twins' 10–2 win over the Oakland Athletics on Saturday, Lewis is batting .320/.379/.618—good for a .997 OPS—with 27 home runs over his first career 87 games.

Lewis hit his 27th career homer during the Twins' 6–5 loss to the A's on Friday night. As The Athletic's Aaron Gleeman first pointed out, only five players in MLB history have hit more homers than Lewis over their first 86 career contests. The 25-year-old is hitting a home run every 11.81 at-bats, which is the third-best mark in baseball history behind Mark McGwire (10.61) and Babe Ruth (11.76).

PLAYER	HOMERS THROUGH 86 CAREER GAMES
Mark McGwire	31
Rudy York	31
Jose Abreu	29
Cody Bellinger	29
Pete Alonso	28
Royce Lewis	27

But wait, there's more.

Among players with 300 plate appearances, Lewis ranks seventh all-time in MLB history with a .618 slugging percentage, trailing Josh Gibson (.718), Babe Ruth (.690), Charlie Smith (.683), Ted Williams (.634), Lou Gehrig (.632) and Mule Suttles (.620). His OPS ranks 17th all-time in baseball history.

In 2024, Lewis is hitting .371/.437/.903 with 10 homers in 17 games. He's hitting the ball out of the park so often that his BABIP—batting average on balls in play—is lower (.310) than his actual batting average (.371).

Per MLB's Sarah Langs, the only players to hit more than 10 homers in their first 16 games of a season were Alex Rodriguez (12; 2007), Mike Schmidt (12; 1976), Aristides Aquino (11; 2019) and Albert Pujols (11; 2006).

Sure, 87 games still is a rather small sample size. But Lewis is finally healthy again. And when he's healthy, the power sure doesn't appear to be a fluke.