KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the immediate aftermath of suffering a quad injury that will force Royce Lewis to the injured list, the Twins’ third baseman said he didn’t feel like a guy who couldn’t catch a break.
But it sure seems that way on the outside looking in.
The early part of his career has been marked by dynamic play on the field and a myriad of injuries that have kept him off it.
His latest setback is a quad injury, suffered while running the bases Thursday during the Twins’ season opener. The Twins will provide a further update on Lewis later Saturday morning.
Lewis described the pain on Thursday as feeling like a cramp and said his first thought through his mind was, not the pain but, “’Dang, that should be 3-1,’” referring to the fact that he was trying to score on Carlos Correa’s double and instead had to pull up at third.
The third baseman had been 2-for-2 before he was forced out of the game, hitting a home run in his first at-bat and a single in his second.
Lewis played in just 58 games last season between injured list stints, starting the season on the IL as he rehabbed from his second anterior cruciate ligament surgery and then coming back and later suffering oblique and hamstring injuries.
“It’s something I can’t control, this stuff, and it’s part of the game,” Lewis said Thursday. “ … I’ll come back and make things happen. We’ll have some more fun.”
To fill his spot on the roster, the Twins will call up second baseman/center fielder Austin Martin, who should platoon with Edouard Julien at second base while Lewis is out. That would shift Kyle Farmer over to third base, a position both he and Willi Castro should see plenty of time at in Lewis’s absence.
It’s the first call up for Martin, who was the fifth overall pick in the 2020 draft and was part of the return from the Toronto Blue Jays for pitcher José Berríos. Martin reached Triple-A last year, playing in 59 games for the Saints. While there, he hit .263/.387/.405.
“There’s no nonsense that follows him around. It’s just that he’s a ballplayer and you love working with guys like that because you know what you’re going to get from them every day,” manager Rocco Baldelli said of Martin earlier this month. “Makes no excuses. He goes out there and works hard and he plays hard. He’s put himself in a nice spot.”
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