Eleven days before Opening Day, it happened again. Royce Lewis exited a spring training game early after pulling his left hamstring running from the batter’s box to first base. He will spend the start of the season on the injured list and has no clear return timetable, but Minnesota Twins officials told beat reporters they don’t expect him to be sidelined as long as he was to start 2024.
Lewis has battled injuries throughout his career. He’ll be on track to improve from a previous injury, and another one sets him back for an extensive period. Still, there may be a slight bright side to going on the injured list before Opening Day instead of after his second at-bat like last season.
With Lewis going on the 10-day IL to start the season, other players will have the opportunity to crack the Opening Day roster and get more playing time. Brooks Lee, Mickey Gasper, and Edouard Julien are the infielders fighting for a spot on the Twins roster to start the season.
All three infielders have been battling it out for the starting second base job, which has been Minnesota’s lone positional opening. For a time, it looked like only one of these three would make it onto the Opening Day roster as the Twins’ primary second baseman or a bench spot.
But now, Lee or Miranda will be splitting the starting role at third base in Lewis’s absence, leaving an opening for Julien and Gasper to rotate to second with Willi Castro. While Lee hasn’t had the hottest spring training performance in games (.238/.273/.381 triple slash with two homers and four RBI), he’s still in a place the Twins want him to be ahead of the start of the season.
On the other hand, Gasper and Julien have had good performances at the plate this spring. Gasper has posted a .310/.432/.448 triple slash in 29 at-bats over 12 games and has played half of those games in the field at second base. He can play all over, and Minnesota is using him at first base (four games in spring training) and catcher (two). Still, the Twins are using him more as a second baseman than a catcher.
In his limited playing time at a learned position, Gasper hasn’t committed an error in 30 innings at second. The same can’t be said for Julien. He’s committed two errors at both first and second base this spring, splitting 39 innings at second in seven games there and 28 innings in five games at first.
Julien is still developing as a defensive infielder, but his bat still has the spark that the Twins need from an extra left-handed hitter. He’s posted a .286/.375/.429 triple slash in 35 at-bats this spring with a home run and four RBI. He doesn’t have the same power numbers Matt Wallner has shown in the last week in camp, but he’s showing everyone he can tap into the offensive prowess from his rookie season.
While Gasper and Julien could make Minnesota’s Opening Day roster by providing positional depth, they also could reduce the workload of its right-handed hitters. Julien would be a lefty platoon hitter for first and second bases, and Gasper would be the third switch hitter on the roster behind Castro and Lee.
All three can benefit from stacking up left-handed hitters in the lineup whenever a righty is on the mound. Or, if they want to do the same with right-handed hitters against a lefty, the Twins can pencil Gasper and Lee into the lineup. Even though he played in 13 games with the Red Sox last season and had 18 plate appearances with them, Gasper will still be looking for his first Major League hit whenever he’s in Minnesota’s batter’s box for the first time.
There will be pressure on two of these three infielders as they make their first-ever Opening Day roster. Still, with so many players adjusting to playing in colder weather and still shaking off the rust of the spring, it might be best to have Gasper, Julien, and Lee on the big league roster to start the season.
That would allow them to rise or fail with the major league club and still have plenty of time to work on their strengths and weaknesses.
