NEW YORK — Royce Lewis’ injured quadriceps turned him into the Twins’ starting third baseman. Carlos Correa’s strained intercostal turned him into their shortstop. Byron Buxton’s sore knee then made him their center fielder.

Minnesota Twins’ Willi Castro before a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Monday, May 20, 2024, in Washington. (Nick Wass / Associated Press)

And now, finally, Edouard Julien’s demotion has led to Willi Castro becoming the Twins’ second baseman. Castro, the only player to appear in every single game this season, has also become one of the most valuable because of his versatility.

“I feel really happy because being in this organization, it’s a winning team and they’re going to use me wherever they need me, and I will get the job done,” Castro said. “They believe in me a lot, and I just try to do my best every time I play those positions.”

When the Twins were deciding how to make room on the roster for Lewis upon his return, knowing they could slot Castro in at second base helped allow the Twins make the choice they felt was best.

Castro said manager Rocco Baldelli called him into the office on Tuesday to tell him that he would be focusing more at second base for the time being, though he started in left field on Wednesday.

“Almost every decision that we have to make on the position player side — I don’t even mean roster moves — I mean everything that we do is affected, and the number of options that we have are almost compounded based on the presence of Willi Castro,” Baldelli said. “He allows us to almost make whatever decisions we want to make. Daily decisions, roster decisions, every kind of decision.”

That’s because he can handle so many different positions capably. Castro came up as a shortstop but credited Detroit manager A.J. Hinch with being the one who “got me to being the player that I am today.”

And that, now, is an everyday player.

“Obviously, as a player, you want to be in the lineup every day,” Castro said. “It’s a privilege for me to be in there and help this team win.”

Lewis honors idol

As he dug in before his first plate appearance on Tuesday in New York, Royce Lewis wanted to pay homage to his favorite baseball player growing up. The third baseman held out his right arm out straight behind him, just like Yankees hall of famer Derek Jeter used to do.

His tribute didn’t work out quite as he envisioned — home plate umpire Chris Segal thought Lewis was trying to call time out and granted it to him, something they wound up laughing about after the fact, Lewis said.

“I just wanted to imitate him and mimic him because he was my idol,” Lewis said of Jeter. “To be here for the first time, I thought it was just a good ode to such a gentleman and a player that I very well respected.”

Briefly

Pablo López will take the ball for the final game of the series against the Yankees on Thursday, opposed by Marcus Stroman. Stroman threw six scoreless innings against the Twins, giving up just two hits, in a Yankees’ win last month.

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Cult country star Sturgill Simpson will return to the road in September and will play his first Twin Cities show in eight years when he headlines St. Paul’s Roy Wilkins Auditorium on Sept. 25.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. June 14 through Ticketmaster. Simpson is offering a presale to fans who sign up at sturgillsimpsonlive.com. He’s also using Ticketmaster’s Face Value Exchange, where tickets can only be resold at the original price. Neither the promoter nor the venue announced prices.

Simpson, 45, grew up in Kentucky and enrolled in the Navy in his senior year of high school. He served for three years and ultimately moved back to Lexington, where he formed the band Sunday Valley. But it was short-lived and Simpson put his focus on building a career at a Salt Lake City railroad freight shipping yard, where he ultimately ended up managing. At the urging of his wife and friends, he tried music again and toured with Sunday Valley until they broke up in 2012.

The following year, Simpson released his solo debut “High Top Mountain,” which earned warm reviews and comparisons to Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. He spent the rest of the decade expanding his audience with new albums and constant touring, including a gig opening for Haggard himself.

After an extended break, Simpson returned to the road in 2021 but cut the outing short due to a vocal cord injury. The upcoming tour supports his sixth solo album “Passage Du Desir,” which is due out July 12 on his own label. He has also adopted a new stage name, Johnny Blue Skies.

The show will be the first major concert at Roy Wilkins in years. Tours have largely avoided it in favor of the similarly sized Armory in downtown Minneapolis, which opened in 2018.

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By LAURAN NEERGAARD (AP Medical Writer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man’s death in Mexico was caused by a strain of bird flu called H5N2 that has never before been found in a human, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The WHO said it wasn’t clear how the man became infected, although H5N2 has been reported in poultry in Mexico.

There are numerous types of bird flu. H5N2 is not the same strain that has infected multiple dairy cow herds in the U.S. That strain is called H5N1 and three farmworkers have gotten mild infections.

Other bird flu varieties have killed people across the world in previous years, including 18 people in China during an outbreak of H5N6 in 2021, according to a timeline of bird flu outbreaks from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mexican health officials alerted the WHO that a 59-year-old man who died in a Mexico City hospital had the virus despite no known exposure to poultry or other animals.

According to family members, the WHO release said, the patient had been bedridden for unrelated reasons before developing a fever, shortness of breath and diarrhea on April 17. Mexico’s public health department said in a statement that he had underlying ailments, including chronic kidney failure, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Hospital care was sought on April 24 and the man died the same day.

Initial tests showed an unidentified type of flu that subsequent weeks of lab testing confirmed was H5N2.

The WHO said the risk to people in Mexico is low, and that no further human cases have been discovered so far despite testing people who came in contact with the deceased at home and in the hospital.

There had been three poultry outbreaks of H5N2 in nearby parts of Mexico in March but authorities haven’t been able to find a connection. Mexican officials also are monitoring birds near a shallow lake on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Whenever bird flu circulates in poultry, there is a risk that people in close contact with flocks can become infected. Health authorities are closely watching for any signs that the viruses are evolving to spread easily from person to person, and experts are concerned as more mammal species contract bird flu viruses.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A Rosemount 18-year-old has pleaded guilty in juvenile court to first-degree manslaughter for punching a Vietnam veteran in the face at St. Paul’s Harriet Island Regional Park, an assault that led to the man’s death nearly a month later.

Wyatt Daniel Doerfler admitted at a Ramsey County District Court hearing on Wednesday that he punched Thomas Dunne after confronting the 76-year-old in a parking lot on Jan. 28. Dunne had several fractures to both his eye socket and nose. He died Feb. 23 while hospitalized.

Thomas Dunne, 76, of St. Paul, died Feb. 23, 2024, at Regions Hospital. (Courtesy of Helen Broderick)

An adult certification for Doerfler, who turned 18 two months after the attack, was supposed to happen on Wednesday. However, the defense and prosecution agreed beforehand to have the case designated as extended juvenile jurisdiction in exchange for pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter while committing fifth-degree assault.

Also part of the plea, Doerfler was given a stayed adult sentence of eight years in prison, which means he could serve that time in an adult prison if he violates the terms of his probation. Extended juvenile jurisdiction offenders are under the juvenile court’s supervision until they are 21.

The case will now move to Dakota County, where Doerfler lives. A judge will hear arguments before pronouncing specific terms of a sentence, which could include time in custody, at a disposition hearing to be held within the next two weeks.

“This case is so sad,” Ramsey County District Judge Jacob Kraus said at Wednesday’s hearing. “I am mostly sad because a person died, a person who was a husband, a loved family member and a veteran. And although a lot of what we’re going to say today is about Wyatt, because this case is in your name, I want the family of the victim to hear those words first.”

Doerfler was originally charged with first-degree assault causing great bodily harm. Charges were upgraded to manslaughter on April 24 after a final autopsy report found Dunne, of St. Paul, died of “probable complications of assault,” according to the amended juvenile petition.

Dunne fought two tours in Vietnam as a Marine and went on to serve in the Minnesota National Guard and the Wisconsin Army Reserves. He was a hero, his wife, Helen Broderick, told the Pioneer Press four days after his death.

She said they had just finished a walk at the riverfront park.

“For a hero like him to come home to his local park after being at risk in foreign wars,” she said, “and to be assaulted like that …”

‘Yeah, that was me’

Officers were called to the 100 block of Water Street after Broderick reported her husband was punched in the face. Officers found Dunne standing next to his car with blood streaming from his right eye socket. St. Paul fire medics were called to the scene.

Dunne told officers that after he saw a male urinating and took out his phone to take a picture, two other males got out of a blue Ford Fusion. They approached him and tried to take his phone. One of them punched him in the face.

A witness told police she saw a male urinating in a pond. She said three males then confronted Dunne and one of them slapped the phone out of his hand and punched him in the face. She said she yelled at them before they walked away, headed east.

Officers saw three males walking east along the river and asked if they were involved in a fight. Doerfler spoke up and said, “Yeah, that was me,” the petition says. He declined to give a formal statement.

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One teen told police they confronted Dunne because they believed he was recording them and that he should have “minded his business.”

The third teen said he couldn’t find a public bathroom and began urinating in a pond. Doerfler and the other teen walked over and Doerfler “indicated that (Dunne) was recording or taking a picture of him,” the petition says. “Doerfler then approached (Dunne) and said, ‘Let’s get to it,’ before punching (him).”

Hospital staff told the police investigator that Dunne’s eye injury was “very severe” and that he “may permanently lose most of his vision in that eye, and it would be months before they could tell if there was any improvement.”

Dunne was discharged from Regions on Jan. 29 with instructions to receive follow-up care. Five days later, he was readmitted to Regions due to complications stemming from the injuries, the petition says.

Medical records indicate that Dunne had contracted an infection that continued to progress and ultimately led to him being placed on a ventilator on Feb.13.

‘Mind-boggling’

Dunne’s family objected to extended juvenile jurisdiction, with niece Heather Turnbull noting Wednesday at the hearing how violent the offense was and how close Doerfler was to turning 18 years of age.

“(Dunne) had his phone in his hand and essentially got sucker punched so violently and so hard that it led to his death,” Turnbull said. “And so we really want to have meaningful consequences.”

Judge Kraus noted that every document filed by a professional recommended extended juvenile jurisdiction for Doerfler, not adult court. “Although that doesn’t matter for the court’s feeling about it because ultimately the parties have to decide what to do with their case today, and they’ve done that,” he said.

Kraus asked Doerfler if he wanted to say anything to Dunne’s family and friends.

“I just want to say that I am so dearly sorry, and if I could go back and change it, I would in a heartbeat,” he said. “I think about it all day, every day and it haunts me. And I am so sorry for your loss.”

Kraus called the incident “mind-boggling” that Doerfler made a decision to “hit an old man.”

“We talk in this courthouse all the time … of once a kid pulls a trigger or throws a punch, he loses all control over what happens next,” he said. “And this is one of the saddest versions of that.”

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