NEW YORK — Royce Lewis homered again.
Do not adjust your television set. Refrain from pinching the person next to you. Don’t check the calendar to see if it’s April 1.
For the third time in three games this season, including both since he returned from a severe right quad strain, the Minnesota Twins’ young star blasted a home run. He is the first player in Twins history, which dates to 1961, to homer in his first three games of the season.
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Lewis celebrated his 25th birthday in style Wednesday night, launching a seventh-inning round-tripper at Yankee Stadium.
That was all that happened. (Editor’s note: It was not all that happened, and if you’re a Twins fan you may want to stop reading right now.)
Unfortunately, Lewis’ solo shot wasn’t nearly enough to help the Twins slow down the New York Yankees.
Aaron Judge ripped a three-run triple and finished with five RBIs for the Yankees, who grabbed an eight-run lead and held on for a 9-5 victory. Twins starter Chris Paddack yielded a four-spot in the first inning and seven earned runs overall, and Yankees pitcher Carlos Rodón retired the first 16 batters he faced before surrendering a Carlos Santana solo homer.
The Yankees have won all five of their meetings against the Twins with one game remaining in the season series Thursday night.
“I would probably hope for two wins,” Lewis said. “I’d strike out eight times if we needed to, if that’s what it took for us to win. I’d do it. Especially against this team. I very much so respect this team and them being the best team in the league right now. You want to showcase a little better than we have with the 0-2 start (this series). I’d love to be 2-0.”
The Twins have been thoroughly outplayed for five contests against the Yankees.
New York defenders have outperformed them, Alex Verdugo, Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto all turning in web gems Wednesday. Yankees pitching has been superior, too, Rodón being equally as dominant as Luis Gil the night before. And their all-world offense has blown the Twins’ doors off.
The Twins acknowledged that fact in the aftermath of Wednesday’s loss. They also did plenty of griping in private about plate umpire Larry Vanover’s strike zone.
From the outset, Vanover had an impact. In the first inning, he rung up Manny Margot on a pitch well out of the strike zone, a 2-2 slider from Rodón, who had elite stuff working. Then in the bottom half, Vanover called a ball on Paddack’s very first pitch, missing a 96 mph fastball right down Broadway.
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Still, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli’s postgame comments were focused on his team’s performance and not Vanover’s.
“Unpleasant,” Baldelli said. “We weren’t really close to where we needed to be. From beginning to end, we have improvements to make when we’re playing this team. We haven’t played well against them this year. They’ve played well. They’ve outplayed us. We have not played very well, either. And it’s five games now and we need to do better. We need to do a lot better. That’s not just one sector of our team. That’s our whole team.”
𝗥𝗼𝘆𝗰𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝘄𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻!!#MLB pic.twitter.com/GQOVGuPbXF
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) June 6, 2024
Paddack could have fared much better in a four-run first despite yielding consecutive singles to open the frame. Kyle Farmer couldn’t make a clean transfer on Judge’s RBI groundout, settling for one instead of a double play. After Giancarlo Stanton ripped a two-out, 115.5 mph RBI single to make it 2-0, Paddack allowed two more runs when Margot couldn’t track down an opposite-field, ground-rule double by Gleyber Torres.
Paddack settled in after that to retire 10 batters in a row, saying he found something mechanically in the bullpen between starts. The result was increased velocity of all of Paddack’s pitches, including a 1.8 mph jump in his four-seam fastball. But Paddack started the fifth inning by walking two batters and surrendering a single, leaving the bases loaded.
Judge then greeted reliever Diego Castillo with a bases-clearing triple to give New York a 7-0 advantage.
“A crooked number in the first, and then me and (Ryan) Jeffers got comfortable with each other there and things were rolling,” Paddack said. “It was definitely a positive to take away that I’m back up to 94-97. My stuff was there, man. That fifth inning kind of got away from me. Bottom of the lineup, top of the order coming up, I have to attack the zone. I can’t lead off the inning with a walk, then a hit, then another walk to give the bases loaded to Judge, the hottest hitter in the league right now. That’s not who you want up in that situation. Unfortunately, seven earned on my line, but I thought I did a lot of great things. Just a tough one to swallow.”
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As for Lewis, this was the second time he’s homered on his birthday. He also dialed long distance in the second game of a Single-A doubleheader for Cedar Rapids against the Beloit Snappers on June 5, 2018, though that one was a grand slam.
Lewis made the point that because his first home run occurred March 28, it doesn’t feel as if he’s homered in three straight games.
“I wish I could have done it a long time ago,” Lewis said. “It would have meant more. … I’m just trying to prove I belong here and I’m going to earn a spot every day still. Still have a young career going. Even though I turned 25 and I look 35, I’m still young. I’m just trying to learn and grow each and every day. Today was another good one for me with Rodón being an elite left-handed pitcher. For me to be able to learn from those at-bats, see those kind of pitches was great.”
(Photo: Luke Hales/ Getty Images)