It's been almost a month since the Minnesota Twins lost Royce Lewis on Opening Day, and since then there hasn't been much to cheer about in any regard.
On the field the Twins are sinking deeper into a hole that is getting increasingly harder to climb out of. After losing seven straight games, Minnesota is only a few games better than the lowly Chicago White Sox and just about everything that could go wrong is.
Minnesota is historically bad offensively right now, hitting lower than .200 as a team and struggling to give proper run support. Part of that is outright issues at the plate, but another part is not having Lewis in the lineup.
Away from the field things aren't much better. Key players like Carlos Correa, Jhoan Duran, and Max Kepler are on the IL with Justin Topa also trying to work his way back. No loss is bigger than Lewis, though, who teased Twins fans with a home run in his first at-bat of the season before getting injured a few innings later.
He's still out indefinitely, but for the first time since his injury the Twins got some semblance of good news.
Latest Royce Lewis injury update finally offers some good news for Twins
After not hearing much over the last few weeks about Lewis, head trainer Nick Paparesta gave an update that offers a glimmer of hope for Twins fans.
"Royce is doing well. He's started some baseball activity. We're looking to get him in a running progression probably the end of next week. He's still got some boxes to check, but heading in the right direction," Paparesta said on Saturday.
Royce Lewis has started baseball activities. He swung off a tee and stood in on some bullpens today. The plan is to get him in some running progressions next week, and is "heading in the right direction." #MNTwins
— Declan Goff (@DexsTweets) April 20, 2024
It's hard to say this was 'on par' with any sort of timeline because there doesn't seem to be one with Lewis. He was placed on the 10-day IL after his quad injury but the expectation was that he'd miss at least a month if not more.
Some of the more aggressive expectations were that he'd be out until the All-Star Break, which is still very possible but something this latest update sort of pushes back against.
The last thing the Twins can afford to do is rush Lewis back, which it doesn't sound like they're going to do. A cautious approach is the best one, especially with how important he is to the offense. We saw Minnesota fall into a slump last summer and it was Lewis' bat that helped pull them out of that funk.
It's going to take all the Twins have to get the bats going again, and the sooner Lewis is back the better but only if he's going to remain healthy and help Minnesota in ways it desperately needs right now.