9 October 2023
Sean Johnson stood off to the side in the Twins’ clubhouse, taking in the scene unfolding in front of him. In the center of the room, players were spraying champagne and dumping cans of beer onto each other in celebration of their Wild Card Series victory last week.
In the midst of it all was Royce Lewis, shirtless, basking it all in with his teammates.
Lewis, currently limited to DHing because of a strained hamstring, hit two big home runs a day earlier, helping the Twins snap a 19-game postseason losing streak. Days later, he would hit a home run in Game 1 of the ALDS, and on Sunday, he walked, collected a hit and scored a run in the Twins’ Game 2 victory over the Astros in Houston.
“We dreamed he would do this,” said Johnson, the Twins’ vice president of amateur scouting. “And when you see it happen in real life and in a playoff game, it just makes the whole process complete in your mind.”
Selecting Lewis, whom the Twins grabbed first overall in the 2017 draft, was one of the first big moves for the current front office — it was the first draft for Johnson atop the scouting department and for president of baseball operations Derek Falvey and general manager Thad Levine in their roles.
And the path to get Lewis to this point was anything but linear, slowed by injuries that robbed him of two full years and a global pandemic that wiped out a full minor-league season. But now, the 24-year-old third baseman is fulfilling the promise the Twins saw in him as a teenager and doing it on the sport’s biggest, brightest stage.
The talent was evident when Twins scouts went to look at the teenager from JSerra Catholic High School in Southern California. But one of the biggest things when making the selection, Falvey said, was finding the type of person who could handle being the first overall pick.
Getting picked “1-1 (in the draft) takes kind of a unique person,” Falvey said. “That’s the one thing I did my research on before we selected him, is 1-1 has a different target on their back. That’s just reality. … We wanted to know who could handle that.”
From the get-go, the Twins could tell that Lewis had “it.” He would be the type of person who would be able to handle the added weight of the pick.
He was mature. His enjoyment of the game was obvious in his enthusiasm. He showed a desire to improve.
That his time in the minor leagues was so thoroughly disrupted — Lewis first tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee ahead of the 2021 season and missed all of that season and then re-tore it last year, delaying the start to this season — has made all this more gratifying for Lewis.
“It definitely made me not take anything for granted knowing how quickly this game could be taken away from you, whether it’s an ACL, hamstring, oblique, whatever it may be, or just strictly performance,” Lewis said of how the injuries shaped his perspective.. “… I just want to be the person that shows I don’t take it for granted. I have fun doing it, even on a quote-unquote bad day at the plate or whatever it may be, your team loses. It’s still so special to be part of this game.”
That infectious positivity combined with the talent — Lewis hit .309 with a .921 OPS and 15 home runs in 58 games during the regular season — and his ability to embrace the big moments and succeed in them — he hit four grand slams this season — has rapidly turned him into a fan favorite who looks destined for stardom.
Just like the Twins hoped when they took a chance on him all those years back.
“You dream of him doing that on a big-league stage, a playoff stage,” Johnson said. “And then when he does it, it’s almost surreal because our dream comes true.”
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