A home run is the best possible outcome that can happen when a player comes to bat with the bases loaded. Or at least, in 99.999999977% of cases, it is. When Jorge Polanco, who had already knocked a dinger off the Cleveland Guardians’ ace-in-the-hole waiver pickup Lucas Giolito, came up with the bases full in the second inning, he found that rare .000000023% time where a homer was the second-best thing he could do.
Turning a 1-0 lead into a 5-0 would’ve been great, sure. But by drawing a walk, Polanco drove in a run and guaranteed four more. Royce Lewis, the grandest, slamminest man in baseball would come up to the plate with bases loaded.
That’s a joke, of course. Or, it would be if Lewis didn’t immediately turn an easy punchline into a reality that might just have wrapped up the AL Central.
Lewis’ second-inning grand slam might have opened the floodgates against the Guardians in an 20-6 laugher, but it also kept his own floodgates open, with his third grand slam in eight days. It’s a silly fluke of a stat that doesn’t change the overall picture with the former No. 1 pick. At least, not as compared to turning that trio of slams into, say, three three-run shots, or even three solo jacks. A lot has to go right before Lewis ever steps to the plate with the bases full so frequently, which is in itself a fluke.
Credit to him, though, he’s delivered in such a way that it elevates an impressive streak to one that’s statistically and historically silly. Slashing .314/.351/.743 over eight games (nine days) is wild enough. Averaging a grand slam every three days, even over such a short stretch, is almost unheard of.
In honor of the sheer absurdity of this feat, we’re rejecting the serious in favor of the stupid. Here are the most absurd stats about Royce Lewis’ grand slams that we could find.
We can start humbly, with how Lewis stacks up against the all-time Minnesota Twins leaders in Grand Slams. In just 56 career games, Lewis already is tied for 11th in franchise history in grand salamis. There are four batters tied with Lewis for 11th. Here is how they stack up against Lewis in terms of games in a Twins uniform:
Rod Carew: 1635
Bob Allison: 1236
Eddie Rosario: 697
Shane Mack: 633
Lewis: 56
All four of these players had anywhere between 11 and 29 times the amount of games Lewis has. It’s truly insane. No one in team history has even hit multiple grand slams in fewer than 145 games, let alone four.
How torrid is Lewis’ grand slam pace against every Twin with multiple full-bag round-trippers? Here are the most frequent Denny’s breakfast eaters in team history:
Lewis: 1 per 14 games
Jim Dwyer: 1 per 72.5 games
Brant Alyea: 1 per 86.5 games
Vic Power: 1 per 100.3 games
Jason Kubel: 1 per 114 games
Don Mincher: 1 per 123.4 games
Danny Valencia: 1 per 136.5 games
Rick Renick: 1 per 138 games
Torii Hunter: 1 per 152.6 games
Bobby Darwin: 1 per 163.3
We’re in “Remember Some Guys territory on a lot of these, but Lewis is racking up grand slams at a pace that’s five times faster than second-place Dwyer (two slams as a Twin) and eight times faster than Kubel (seven), who holds the crown among long-time Twins. At this rate, he’d only need 98 more games to surpass Harmon Killebrew, who took 1939 games to reach 10 grand slams, for the Twins record.
That all sounds silly, but that’s exactly what Lewis has been thus far. His three grand slams in the past nine days are the shortest span between three grand slams since Larry Parrish notched three between July 4-10, 1982. That was 41 years ago. The last week and change has been a literal once-in-a-lifetime event for a large percentage of Twins fans.
It also means that Lewis is tied with Alex Bregman, Adolis Garcia, and Max Muncy for the MLB lead in grand slams this season. Those three players have 137, 132, and 114 games on the season, respectively, compared to Lewis’ 44. Even more impressive, his 3 grand slams would have put him in sole possession of the MLB lead in five of the past 40 seasons (2022, 2019, 1989, 1986, 1983). If you want to throw in COVID-shortened 2020 and strike-shortened 1994 (after all, those seasons had more than the 44 games Lewis has played), make that seven of the past 40 seasons. There’s a 17.5% chance that nine days of Lewis exceeds what thousands of ballplayers are able to muster in a given year.
We can already tell you that Lewis is No. 1 all-time in OPS with the bases loaded (minimum 10 plate appearances), but let’s take a quick detour to discuss a very important question. Is Royce Lewis the most clutch player of all time?
With runners in scoring position, Lewis has a staggering 1.268 OPS (.392/.482/.786 stat line) in 62 plate appearances. Of everyone with 40 or more career plate appearances with RISP in MLB history, only one player (Ryan Schimpf, 1.234 OPS w/RISP) comes within 40 points of Lewis’ mark. Now let’s look at players who’ve logged 200 or more such plate appearances, and compare them to Lewis:
Lewis, 1.268
Babe Ruth, 1.186
Barry Bonds, 1.121
Ted Williams, 1.121
Jimmie Foxx, 1.085
Fernando Tatis, Jr., 1.082
Rogers Hornsby, 1.076
Lou Gehrig, 1.083
Shohei Ohtani, 1.063
Mark McGwire, 1.059
Any time you can crack the top-10 with five Hall of Famers, you know you’re doing well. And just to give a touch of advice to Bonds, Tatis, Jr., Ohtani, and McGwire: If you want to end your wait for the Hall to call you, might you consider being as good in big situations as Lewis? Just a thought!
But maybe the most fun stat concerns batting averages with the bases loaded. Let’s look at the MLB leaders (minimum 100 ABs) since the year 2000:
1) Carlos Guillen, .405
2) Michael Brantley, .396
3) Wilson Ramos, .395
T-4) Carl Crawford, Juan Pierre, .381
6) Joe Mauer, .378
7) Edgar Renteria, .377
8) Vladimir Guerrero, .374
9) Ichiro Suzuki, .383
10) Todd Helton, .371
11) Miguel Cabrera, .370
12) Matt Holliday, .369
13) Adrian Gonzalez, .368
14) Manny Machado, .367
T-15) Lewis (home runs only), .363
Does any of this actually mean anything? Not really, not so far. These are all extremely small sample sizes, even if they come with the pedigree and talent of a No. 1 overall pick. But who cares? Not only is Lewis carrying the Twins when they need it the most, but his grand slam streak has given Minnesota fans something that’s been in short supply since 2019: fun.
All stats via Stathead.com.
