WEST SACRAMENTO — All of Royce Lewis’s hard work, all of his tinkering in the cage, everything he did to get himself right during a day off from the game on Friday was finally rewarded on Tuesday night. Up with the bases loaded, Lewis, smacked the ball off the wall in center, bringing home a pair of runs in the seventh inning and snapping an 0-for-32 skid that dated back to May 21.
His big swing was one of many things for the Twins to like in Tuesday night’s 10-3 win over the Athletics in Sacramento. And then, there was this, casting a shadow over an otherwise great night for the Twins: Pablo López gesturing towards the team’s dugout with his red glove for a team trainer.
After throwing three warm-up pitches before the bottom of the sixth inning, López left with what the Twins are calling a lat strain. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said the team’s ace would likely need a stint on the injured list, but they will know more after he has imaging done on Wednesday.
López said he first felt “something tighten up,” during the fifth inning with Brent Rooker up at the plate. He threw six more pitches in the inning and then went to the dugout, where his head “started spinning,” wondering if it was something terrible or something that would go away.
The starter has dealt with shoulder injuries in the past and said if there was a silver lining, it was that it wasn’t the “posterior cuff or that I didn’t feel anything blowing up.”
“It sucks. I don’t like it,” he said. “I hate the idea of thinking it could be something bad, but we can’t control things like this.”
He left the mound alongside head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta, after which the duo made the long walk across the Sutter Health Park diamond to the outfield, where the Twins’ (33-27) clubhouse is located. Prior to that point, López had given up two runs — one in the first inning on consecutive hits from the first two Athletics (23-39) batters he faced and another in the third — in his five innings pitched.
He left with a lead as the Twins tied the game in the top of the sixth with Trevor Larnach’s first home run off a left-handed pitcher since 2023 and went ahead on Willi Castro’s second home run of the night. Castro had a multi-home run game on Friday in Seattle, but this time he did it from the right side of the plate rather than left.
“We had to work early in the game to try to get something going,” Baldelli said. “It didn’t come quick, but sometimes you just need someone to jump start you and today it was Willi Castro. He was a spark plug.”
Later in that inning, Lewis worked an eight-pitch walk, a positive plate appearance for the slumping third baseman.
He later scored on Byron Buxton’s single, the center fielder second hit of the night. Buxton now has two hits in each of his past four games since returning from the concussion injured list on Friday.
An inning later, in the eighth, the Twins tacked on four more runs, two of which scored on Lewis’s hit.
“What helped set up the night was just me going back to my good feel, finding it (Monday) on the off day there for me,” Lewis, who was out of the lineup on Monday, said. “I got a lot of swings in and took care of business there, what I needed to do to figure out how I wanted to be Royce again.”
Lewis had another good swing in the ninth inning, though he wasn’t rewarded for it. It was a night full of them for the Twins, who put up 10 runs for the second consecutive day.
“We’ve been playing such good baseball. It’s been really fun to see, to be a part of, which is why I’m also bummed,” López said. “It’s been so fun. And the slightest idea of thinking that I would miss time makes me really sad. Devastates me. But that’s what we do. I’m sure the guys were concerned or wondering what was happening to me, but when it was time to play ball, they did what they did.”
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