Inside The Twins

Royce Lewis leaves Twins' spring game with left hamstring strain

Lewis had to exit the game and appears to be hurt again. The Twins have to hope it's nothing serious.

Will Ragatz

Royce Lewis had to exit the game after appearing to suffer a lower-body injury on Sunday
Royce Lewis had to exit the game after appearing to suffer a lower-body injury on Sunday / Twins.TV

The thing Twins fans were dreading appears to have happened. Royce Lewis is hurt again.

Lewis pulled up limping while running out a ground ball in the second inning of Sunday's spring training game against the Red Sox. He was hustling hard out of the box on a grounder to third and appeared to suffer a lower-body injury about halfway down the line. It's a left hamstring injury, according to the team.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli and head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta went out to check on Lewis, who was removed from the game. Baldelli was being interviewed on the Twins.TV broadcast as the play was going on and audibly reacted to Lewis getting hurt.

"This is not what we want to see," analyst Justin Morneau said. "Twins have been, for the most part, pretty healthy here in camp."

"The last thing anybody wanted to see with camp winding down," play-by-play broadcaster Cory Provus said.

"As much as anything, you just feel for the kid," Morneau said. "He's dealt with so much early in his career. You hope this is something that isn't as bad as it first looks."

The 25-year-old Lewis has been plagued by injuries throughout his MLB career. He suffered torn ACLs in both 2021 and 2022, missed some additional time in 2023, and then had multiple lengthy injury absences last season. He's proven to have electrifying talent when healthy, but Lewis has played in only 152 of a possible 486 regular season games (31.3 percent) over the past three seasons. Between the regular season and playoffs, the former No. 1 overall draft pick has hit 37 home runs in 158 career games.

Lewis was hitting .385 (10 for 26) with a 1.077 OPS this spring coming into today's game. He previously dealt with a left hamstring injury late in the 2023 season.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

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