Twins’ Royce Lewis ‘open to anything’ to avoid injuries
Royce Lewis is so desperate, so eager to stay on the field, that the Twins’ third baseman is willing to try anything that might help.
Anything.
“If someone said, ‘Hey, if you smoke cigarettes like Babe Ruth and that’ll work,’ then I’ll do that too,” Lewis joked. “I’ll do whatever. I’m open to anything.”
Just a day earlier, Lewis received news that he had suffered a Grade 2 strain in his right adductor, an injury that happened as he was running the bases on Tuesday night.
Lewis is expected to be out at least through the all-star break, at which point the Twins will reassess his injury. He said he first felt some tightness in his adductor during the Twins’ trip to Oakland about 10 days ago and he communicated it with the staff, but it was something he was able to manage.
It worsened Tuesday.
The injury, he was told, stems in part from the first injury he had this year — a severe quad strain that cost him the first two months of the season.
“What I was told, it’s a lot of compensation for the lack of strength I have in my quad because of that injury,” Lewis said. “Not that we rushed back. It’s just that it takes eight months of time and if someone is ready — I mean clearly I was able to perform at a high level. … But because there is a deficit there, the adductor kind of overcompensated.”
It’s the latest in a long line of injuries for Lewis and he said it’s particularly frustrating for him because of all the work he puts in to get himself ready for games.
“I’m getting here six hours before the game, five or six hours before the game, home and road, being away from family, taking time away from communicating with family or friends and basically not living a life to eventually just get hurt,” he said.
He has twice torn the ACL in his knee, requiring a surgery that took a year to rehab and return each time. Last year, he also dealt with oblique and hamstring injuries. This year, it’s been his quad and adductor.
This one, at the very least, is not as severe as some of his past injuries and the Twins have said they believe he will not miss as much time as he missed with the quad strain (58 games).
“We’re running out of muscles to get broken or whatever, so this is all good,” Lewis said. “Hopefully I’ll cross off the next one and be done.”
Aronson gets call up
Sean Aronson, the longtime voice of the St. Paul Saints, will make his major league debut on the Twins’ upcoming road trip, filling in for radio broadcaster Kris Atteberry.
Aronson, who has called 1,920 Saints games since the 2007 season, will work the series in Chicago and San Francisco, calling games between July 8-14, with Dan Gladden.
“I’ve dreamt about this moment my entire broadcasting career and to finally get the chance to broadcast major league games is something I won’t soon forget,” Aronson said in a release.
Briefly
Pablo López, Joe Ryan and Simeon Woods Richardson are set to take the mound over the weekend when the Twins welcome the Houston Astros into town. … The Twins will wear their City Connect uniforms on both July 5 and 6.
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