Royce Lewis watched his sixth-inning fly ball die on the warning track on Thursday afternoon, landing in the glove of Athletics left fielder Tyler Soderstrom, and retreated back to the first-base dugout at Target Field, where he proceeded to remove his helmet and slam it.
And then, in the far corner of the dugout, he kept slamming it before letting out a yell.
“You go find a nice, private spot and you just let it fly and sometimes you feel mildly better walking away,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Honestly, it’s part of the game. The game can be frustrating.”
It sure has been for Lewis this season and on Thursday, the normally cheerful infielder got to a “boiling point,” which just so happened to be caught on camera.
The Twins third baseman entered the day with his numbers down across the board — his .225 batting average, .287 on-base percentage, .361 slugging percentage, .658 OPS and 77 OPS+ are all career lows — enduring what has essentially amounted to a season-long slump that began at the end of last season.
“When you’re a 9-year-old kid and you get frustrated and lost in your video game over and over again, obviously you have to keep working and figuring out,” Lewis said. “That’s what we’re doing. It’s exactly how it feels.”
The search for answers has been a constant one for Lewis, who said he hasn’t felt comfortable at the plate all year.
“It’s hard to make a full in-season adjustment because you can try that and those 30 at-bats of trial go towards your stats,” Lewis said. “I’m fighting for taking care of myself and my family. I don’t want to put any of those stats in jeopardy. But feeling like I’ve been on an island, it’s kind of tough.”
There was a stretch in which his numbers picked up and things seemed to be on the upswing for Lewis. He hit .293 in the month of July, hitting three of the six home runs this season entering Friday. Within that, he had a particularly good road trip to Colorado and Los Angeles, in which he hit .471 with a 1.644 OPS and eight hits in five games.
But even his better performance, he said, was more because he was around his family, which helped raise his spirits, rather than actually feeling more comfortable at the plate.
“This whole year, it’s felt uncomfortable and I’ve been missing pitches,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if (pitchers are) adjusting or not. They’re middle-middle. A Little League hitter would at least put them in play and I’m fouling them straight back. That’s where it’s frustrating.”
It was easier, he said, to handle some of that frustration when he had “some mentors that were there to help.” But after the Twins shipped off 10 major leaguers at the deadline, now Lewis said he mostly looks to Byron Buxton for mentorship. And though he has close relationships with former players Torii Hunter and Matt Kemp, both two-time Silver Slugger Award winners, he said he feels bad reaching out to ask them for help, too, leading him to feel somewhat alone.
“I feel like I’m kind of on an island and trying to figure it out on my own,” Lewis said. “It’s really hard.”
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