MLB playoffs 2023: How Royce Lewis embodies upstart Twins - ESPN

Royce Lewis' father, William, sat near the back of the family section behind home plate and could only shake his head. «He would do something like that,» he told himself. Derek Falvey, the Minnesota Twins' president of baseball operations, turned to his 7-year-old son Jack, wearing a cream-colored Royce Lewis jersey gifted to him for these playoffs, and found himself at a loss for words.

«If you write that as a fiction story,» Falvey later said, «everyone would say that's too much fantasy. 'That's not real. That can't be real.' You would think it's fake.»

Twenty-four hours before he became a certified Twins legend, hitting the two home runs that set the tone in the victory that ended an unprecedented 18-game postseason losing streak, Lewis didn't even know if he would play.

Another ailment was threatening to keep him off the field for Game 1 of the Twins' wild-card series against the Toronto Blue Jays. This time it was a hamstring strain that had popped up in September — which followed the oblique strain from midseason, which followed the ACL tear from last year, which followed the ACL tear from the year before that.

When he returned in time to homer in each of his first two postseason plate appearances and electrify a desperate Target Field crowd, his mom swore that fate was at play.

«We're big believers in 'things happen for a reason,'» Cindy Lewis said in a phone conversation. «But there's also a part of it that, everything Royce has endured to this point, early in his career, with both ACL surgeries and then the oblique, all these little hiccups along the way — he genuinely realizes how quickly the game that he loves so much can be taken away from you.»

Lewis is a rookie at 24, limited to designated hitter, but the