Everything We Currently Know About Royce Lewis's Quad Injury and Timeline

[Lucas Seehafer PT]

The Minnesota Twins announced on Saturday morning that star third baseman Royce Lewis is headed to the 10-day injured list after straining his right quadriceps during Thursday's season-opening win over Kansas City. 

Image courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey labeled Lewis's injury as "severe" and "serious"  but did not provide a grade for the strain, the traditional way for communicating the extent of a soft tissue injury. According to The Athletic's Dan Hayes, surgery was never considered.

Soft tissue injuries, such as quadriceps strains, exist on a spectrum with grade 1 injuries considered mild and grade 3s the most severe. But even within the traditional 1-3 grading system, vagueries exist concerning the extent of damage.

MRIs determine the degree of the muscle strain, or torn muscle tissue. If less than 10% of the muscle fibers are damaged, the injury is classified as grade 1 and usually heals within a week or two. If more than 50% of the fibers are torn and/or the integrity of the connecting tendon is compromised, it's classified as a grade 3, and recovery is generally on the order of 4-6 months, especially if surgery is required.

Grade 2 strains comprise a bulk of the classification system with 10-50% of muscle fibers needing to be damaged to meet the criteria. Unlike grade 3 injuries which are all debilitating regardless if 50% or 100% of the fibers are damaged, the amount of function lost and the time needed to heal varies widely based on how many muscle fibers are compromised in grade 2 strains. If the number is closer to 10%, the injury heals similar to a grade 1; if it's closer to 50%, well, you get the idea.

Based on Falvey's description, Lewis's injury likely lands on the more significant end of the grade 2 spectrum. As I reported in our initial story following Lewis's injury, Baseball Prospectus's injury database has the average days missed following a quadriceps strain at 30. According to the Twins, Lewis will spend at least the next 30 rehabilitating before being re-evaluated to determine if it is appropriate to begin ramping back up to game speed. MLB athletes get 20 days once designated for a rehab assignment, so the most optimistic return for Lewis would be in 50 days, or May 19. A more realistic return date may be June 1, which is 63 days from the time of writing, though a later return date can't be ruled out. 

While disappointing, the Twins would still have 104 games remaining on their schedule if Lewis returns on June 1, leaving him plenty of time to make an impact on the team's playoff hopes. In the meantime, Austin Martin and Brooks Lee, once he himself returns from injury, will get plenty of run in the big leagues.

Injuries are an unfortunate aspect of sport and no one, other than perhaps Byron Buxton, knows this more than Royce Lewis. Yet, after every roadblock, he returns to post high levels of productivity. Despite the severity of his current malady, we shouldn't expect anything less from the former first overall pick this time around either.

 

 

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[CRF]

This SUCKS!

[bighat]

So the team's best player will miss 1/3 of the season after getting injured in the first game of the year? Yeowch. Where's the silver lining again? 

[Werbellik]

They said on the pre-game it was a level one tear.

 

[USAFChief]

Lewis has less than a year in the big leagues and this will mark his third IL stint for "soft tissue injury."

Somebody is doing something wrong.

[Dave Borton]

49 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

...

Somebody is doing something wrong.

Or his anatomy is prone to soft tissue damage.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, bighat said:

So the team's best player will miss 1/3 of the season after getting injured in the first game of the year? Yeowch. Where's the silver lining again? 

On the bright side - Buxton just hit a one hopper over the 3B head for a double……..he looks like he’s 23! Knock on wood somewhere.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

Lewis has less than a year in the big leagues and this will mark his third IL stint for "soft tissue injury."

Somebody is doing something wrong.

6-8 weeks seems probable the way he was hobbling at 3B Thursday.

[LastOnePicked]

Our bad luck with top prospects is insane at this point. Just insane. Pulling for Royce's full recovery, but it is not exactly easy being a Twins fan at this point.

[Hubie29]

Hopefully we play KC until the end of April and we will be fine.  Lewis has to be the most frustrating Twins player this side of Buxton. Lewis is making Buxton almost look like an example of health and fitness. 

[Fat Calvin]

3 hours ago, JD-TWINS said:

On the bright side - Buxton just hit a one hopper over the 3B head for a double……..he looks like he’s 23! Knock on wood somewhere.

But don't knock too hard; you might injure your wrist.

[Teflon]

As a baby boomer, I'm at a point in life where I'm annoyingly reminded by my body that I have a finite number of stair-climbing reps remaining in my hips and knees. If I started climbing more stairs at present to increase my speed and endurance in climbing them, I'm reasonably assured the added reps would also shorten the remaining service time for those hips and knees and put me at more risk of breaking a hip in the process. 

Thinking along those lines but for an elite athlete instead of a sedentary baby-boomer, does intensive training actually make the body more prone to injury? My understanding is that muscle growth is based on creating micro-tears through exercise that the body then repairs, adding more mass and and improving performance capability in the process. What does the recurring micro damage and repair from that repeated training do to the resiliency of the muscle, however, and what kind of cumulative stress does such frequent training impart to the supporting tendons and ligaments? Is a player who trains more moderately actually at less risk?  I'd be interested to know how the per capita rate of ACL tears and quad injuries compares to present from when Spring Training was the extent of a player's physical conditioning. 

[adorduan]

Unfortunately he's as brittle as Buxton...

[walkstar89]

6 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Lewis has less than a year in the big leagues and this will mark his third IL stint for "soft tissue injury."

Somebody is doing something wrong.

Or, and just hear me out on this.....playing professional sports is hard on people's bodies and not all bodies handle it well. Not always anyone to blame with injuries

[MMMordabito]

There's always villaining

 

[twinstalker]

Why would Lewis need to spend the full 20 days on a rehab assignment?  History shows otherwise.  You really want him crushing homers for as long as possible in AAA?

[h2oface]

11 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

Our bad luck with top prospects is insane at this point. Just insane. Pulling for Royce's full recovery, but it is not exactly easy being a Twins fan at this point.

And what about pitchers? It is amazing that Pablo Lopez is healthy. All the other pitchers traded for get injured pronto. They really know how to pick 'em. Look at that value for Polanco now.

[theBOMisthebomb]

Thanks for the injury update on Buxton... I mean, Lewis. 

[Linus]

12 hours ago, Teflon said:

As a baby boomer, I'm at a point in life where I'm annoyingly reminded by my body that I have a finite number of stair-climbing reps remaining in my hips and knees. If I started climbing more stairs at present to increase my speed and endurance in climbing them, I'm reasonably assured the added reps would also shorten the remaining service time for those hips and knees and put me at more risk of breaking a hip in the process. 

Thinking along those lines but for an elite athlete instead of a sedentary baby-boomer, does intensive training actually make the body more prone to injury? My understanding is that muscle growth is based on creating micro-tears through exercise that the body then repairs, adding more mass and and improving performance capability in the process. What does the recurring micro damage and repair from that repeated training do to the resiliency of the muscle, however, and what kind of cumulative stress does such frequent training impart to the supporting tendons and ligaments? Is a player who trains more moderately actually at less risk?  I'd be interested to know how the per capita rate of ACL tears and quad injuries compares to present from when Spring Training was the extent of a player's physical conditioning. 

There is research that supports this but I believe it pertains to sports like marathon running etc. I think baseball as a sport has a lot of these types of injuries because of the movement required. Sprinting from a dead start, swinging a bat abruptly etc. 

[Ctwink]

Think its time for us to do some major praying for Lewis - clearly he is the current Twins "hex" recipient in the long line of stellar Twins players since 2000 cut down by injuries.  Jason Kubel, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano...

[twinstalker]

I don't think Sano's problem was injuries.