MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Royce Lewis was placed on the 10-day injured list by the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday with a right adductor strain, the latest setback in the star infielder’s young career, and called up prospect Brooks Lee in his place.
Lewis, 25, is on the injured list for the second time this season after he missed 58 games with a partially torn quadriceps in his right leg. He’s also made his way back twice from ACL tears in his right knee since being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 draft by Minnesota.
Lewis was removed from Tuesday’s game against Detroit with what the team first declared was left groin tightness after he pulled slowly into second following a two-run, two-out double.
“Probably not very optimistic, to be honest with you,” Lewis said after the game. “I’m praying, but it’s usually always horrible news. So, we’ll see.”
Lewis has 31 homers and 80 RBIs in just 100 major league games, including the postseason.
He was hitting .292 with 10 home runs and 18 RBIs with a 1.039 OPS in 24 games this season.
“Dealing with things that are really difficult never becomes easy, but they become easier as time goes on,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Wednesday. “The more you experience in life — he’s already dealt with a lot of physical injuries, physical ailments early on in his career. He’s dealt with them all really well. I have no doubt he’s gonna deal with this perfectly fine.”
The team hasn’t announced a timeline for Lewis’ return but said he’d be reassessed after the upcoming All-Star break.
“Most likely, but he’s going to be down a few weeks,” president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “That’s our current expectation. Obviously tough news for Royce. He’s been through a lot.”
Replacing Lewis on the roster is Lee, the No. 8 overall pick by Minnesota in the 2022 draft who is rated as the No. 13 overall prospect in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline. A switch hitter, Lee was recently named to the All-Star Futures Game.
Drafted as a shortstop, he has played around the infield for Triple-A St. Paul this season and was in Wednesday’s lineup at third base for the Twins against Detroit for his debut. He had two hits in the game and had his first career RBI, driving in Byron Buxton in the seventh inning with a single.
Lee, 23, has hit .329 with seven homers and 21 RBIs with a 1.029 OPS in 20 games for St. Paul.
“As long as I’m in the lineup and we win, that’s all that matters to me,” Lee said. “And they know how to win already, so I’m not too worried about that.”
Lee, too, is coming off injury. He missed two months earlier this season with a herniated disk in his back.
“When you look down and see what he’s been doing since he came back healthy, you really couldn’t ask for much more,” Falvey said. “This kid’s hit from both sides of the plate. He’s even better right-handed than he has been over the last few years. He’s got a really good feel for defense.”
To make room on the 40-man roster to select Lee’s contract from Triple-A, Minnesota transferred right-handed pitcher Brock Stewart to the 60-day injured list. Stewart is out with right shoulder tendinitis, but Falvey said the move isn’t a reflection of Stewart’s outlook.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Minnesota Twins third baseman Royce Lewis makes an off-balance throw on a ball hit by Arizona Diamondbacks' Kevin Newman, who was safe on Lewis' throwing error during the sixth inning of a baseball game Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Phoenix. Minnesota won 13-6. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Twins place third baseman Royce Lewis on the injured list, call up prospect Brooks Lee
Twins place third baseman Royce Lewis on the injured list, call up prospect Brooks Lee
Minnesota Twins' Royce Lewis hits a two-run double during the third inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Jenn Tran can't stop thinking about being the first Asian American lead in the history of “The Bachelor” franchise — not that she wants to.
“I think about it every day, all the time. I think if I pushed it aside, that would be such a dishonor to me in who I am because being Asian American, that’s me,” the 26-year-old aspiring physician assistant tells The Associated Press.
A Vietnamese American woman reigning over Bachelor Nation marks a significant moment for the reality TV dating behemoth. Historically, fewer roses on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” have gone to contestants of color. The roses that were handed out often came with plenty of thorns, including racist social media commentary.
Tran's season doesn't debut on ABC until Monday, but it's already received some criticism for having few suitors of Asian descent. Still, Tran — who made it to the final six in the last “Bachelor” season starring Joey Graziadei — is embracing her unconventional search for love as an opportunity to share her bicultural upbringing.
“My mom and I speak a lot of Vietnamese together. And I can’t wait for people to see that. That’s not something that people have seen before,” Tran says.
“The Bachelor” has been a mixed bag when it comes to showcasing Asian cultures. In 2019, “Bachelor” lead Colton Underwood went on a group date over Singaporean street food. The mostly white contestants made gagging noises and Colton, who is also white, made a toast “to weird food.” The outing drew some backlash and even a Washington Post column.
Tran, whose season has already completed filming, assures that the show has handled her Vietnamese identity respectfully.
“There is a small scene in the beginning in my intro package where I talk to my family about leaving as a bachelorette and there they cooked a big, big Vietnamese meal,” Tran says. “I hope ... I’m exposing people to something that’s different than them. And so that can incite change and that can incite acceptance into people.”
Non-white contestants and leads, including Black trailblazers Rachel Lindsay and Matt James, have historically been met with hostility from the majority-white Bachelor Nation audience. Longtime host Chris Harrison left the franchise in 2021, under fire over his handling of a racism controversy in an interview with Lindsay. Rachel Nance, who is Filipino and Black and outlasted Tran on Graziadei's season, tearfully recounted in March getting “hundreds” of DMs and comments using racial slurs for both Black and Asian people. (Some viewers were disappointed that host Jesse Palmer did not call it racism but instead asked viewers to temper their “strong opinions.”)
Tran hasn't been immune to the same treatment. She gets racist comments “every day" on Instagram and TikTok, she says. Her approach is to simply ignore it, though it isn't easy.
“Social media is like this platform for all these people just come at me all at once and it’s a new feeling. It’s overwhelming. And unfortunately, that’s the world that we live in right now,” Tran says. “I hope that people are more open-minded and that they open their hearts up to this truly.”
Tran's star turn has definitely piqued the interest of Asian Americans who don’t typically watch “Bachelor” programming, however. One is Vi Luong, 27, a Vietnamese American social media influencer/content creator who has only watched “The Golden Bachelor.” She's never been interested in the younger incarnations.
“I’d say 90% of my friends are Asian and yeah, they’re kind of like in my boat where they’ve never really cared until now,” says Luong, who is based in Irvine, California. “The bad rhetoric I was seeing was like, ‘Oh, she’s a diversity hire.’ Maybe but, like, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. ... Tapping into a whole different demographic — I think it's a smart choice."
Luong has already received invites to watch parties happening within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Luong, whose boyfriend is white, wants to see how Tran and the show handle interracial dating and any culture clashes. She's also looking forward to how Tran's mother handles the boyfriend meet-and-greets.
“This is where I’m like, ‘Oh, this might get really interesting,’” Luong says. “If there’s something you have to know about Vietnamese people, is we are very, very blunt people, very direct people, especially our parents' generation.”
The star herself says her mother has only watched Vietnamese reality TV shows. Tran isn't sure how her parent will react to whatever makes it to air — but her mother wasn't shy during filming, which Tran thinks will make for good TV.
“There are some concerns and things that she brought up because of our Vietnamese culture. So that’s something that I’m excited for people to learn about,” Tran says. “She really was just trying to wrap her head around it all.”
Only a few of the 25 men vying for her affections appear to be of Asian descent, and only one is Vietnamese American. The franchise's dearth of Asian men has been an ongoing gripe: The “Bachelor” universe, which debuted in 2002, didn't have an Asian contestant until the 2016 season of “The Bachelorette.” Jonathan, a half-Scottish and half-Chinese technical sales rep, entered in a kilt and was primarily remembered for a crude punchline implying that his Asian side wasn't as manly.
In response to the lack of Asian men, Asian American production company Wong Fu Productions made two parody “Bachelorette” skits in 2017 and 2018. Collectively, the YouTube videos, one of which features a pre-“Shang Chi” Simu Liu, have amassed more than 9 million views.
Philip Wang, co-founder and video director, plans to check out Tran's journey. He called her casting “a net positive move” but hopes the series avoids any stereotypical tropes.
“Ultimately the bachelor/ette shows are very white leaning/adjacent so it’s an uphill battle to shift that branding/audience...if it’s even worth it," Wang wrote in an email.
In a wide-ranging interview last month with the Los Angeles Times, the showrunners who took over from creator Mike Fleiss last year addressed the franchise's troubling history with race. They acknowledged falling short in responding to concerns of the few non-white leads and online bullying, and acknowledged Tran should have had more Asian suitors.
As for if any of those suitors put a ring on it, Tran will not confirm.
“I can tell you that I'm happy with the way things ended,” she says with a smile.
Besides romance, Tran also feels that she found her voice on “The Bachelor” franchise. She has been candid about wanting to break a streak of toxic relationships. She hopes viewers will see an Asian American woman unafraid to advocate for what she knows she deserves.
"Throughout this journey I really learned to stand up for myself because if you don’t, nobody else will,” Tran says. “I hope that women will see that and will resonate with that and will understand that it’s okay to have a voice and in fact, that makes you stronger in who you are.”
This image released by Disney shows Jenn Tran during the taping of "The Bachelorette," premiering Monday, July 8 on ABC. (John Fleenor/Disney via AP)
This image released by Disney shows Jenn Tran, a contestant on "The Bachelor." (John Fleenor/Disney via AP)
