Royce Lewis ends his skid, Willi Castro homers twice as Twins rout A’s 10-3

WEST SACRAMENTO, CALIF. – Willi Castro homered twice, Trevor Larnach homered once, and Byron Buxton added his ninth and 10th RBI in the past five days. Yet probably the most memorable performance, and certainly the most hopeful, came down to one swing of the bat.

Royce Lewis swung it, and the Athletics felt it.

Lewis reached for a curveball in the seventh inning Tuesday night and drove it off the wall in left-center, scoring two Twins runs in their eventual 10-3 rout of the A’s in minor league Sutter Health Park. It was the Twins’ second straight blowout in the home of the Class AAA River Cats and the A’s eighth loss in a row.

“That was a really important swing for us in the game, for the team, but also an important swing for him. Something you can stand on, you can enjoy in some ways, but also build upon,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

“We’ve talked about Royce a lot lately. He’s been working hard. He’s been preparing to be able to go out there and do those things and play like that. You could see it in his face. He looked real pleased and he should be.”

More importantly to the Twins and Lewis, it stopped a two-week-old hitless streak at 0-for-32, the ninth-longest such drought by a position player in Twins history. Politeness requires we not mention that Lewis also owns the third-longest streak, broken not quite one month ago.

Anxiety, however, requires pointing out that Pablo López, who worked five difficult innings and allowed two runs, left the game after briefly warming up in the sixth inning. The righthander experienced right shoulder tightness, and a preliminary examination indicated a strained lat muscle in the back of his shoulder.

“It’s safe to say it’s a likely IL [injured list],” Baldelli said.

The Athletics, stranded in their state’s capital until Las Vegas builds them a stadium or a Plan B is figured out, put up a fight against López, whose night was eerily similar to Joe Ryan’s the night before.

BOXSCORE: Twins 10, Athletics 3

MLB standings

López gave up four hits, two fewer than Ryan, but like his teammate walked three A’s and struck out only four. The A’s put runners on base in each of the first seven innings but, doomed by a 1-for-9 success rate with runners in scoring position, twice left runners stranded on third and twice on second.

“Pablo battled well and made pitches when he had to,” Baldelli said. “These are things you do when you’re a good major league pitcher and you’ve got to work in one of your starts. You still find a way.”

The Twins weren’t much better, but they had far more chances, going 4-for-13 with runners on second or third. And when Castro batted against lefthander Jacob Lopez, they scored without anyone on. Castro smacked long fly balls to nearly identical spots in the fourth and sixth innings, giving him four home runs in the past five games and 51 for his career. Tuesday’s homers were Castro’s first from the righthanded batter’s box since last August.

“I’m feeling great. Now I’m feeling great from both sides,” Castro said. “I’m recognizing the movement of the pitches. [Lopez] was really dominating at first, but I hit them pretty good.”

The Twins also put together a couple of big innings without home runs, taking advantage of an overmatched A’s bullpen that is a big reason why they have lost 19 of their past 20 games overall and are 3-12 since May 1 at home.

One started, oddly enough, when Brooks Lee didn’t touch first base. There was a two-car pileup preventing it, with first baseman Tyler Soderstrom and Jacob Lopez scrambling frantically on the dirt, trying to hold on to the baseball. So Lee jumped over the fray and past the base, without touching it.

Didn’t matter. Umpire Carlos Torres apparently didn’t notice the missed base and ruled Lee safe. Jacob Lopez then walked Lewis, righthander Osvaldo Bido walked Harrison Bader, and Buxton drove both in with a single to center that Denzel Clarke misplayed, allowing Buxton to reach second. Buxton has played four games since returning from a concussion and is 8-for-23 (.348) with two stolen bases and 10 RBI.

In the seventh, Larnach singled and Carlos Correa walked to set up another four-run inning. Ty France singled to load the bases, and Lee was hit by a pitch, bringing in Larnach.

That brought up Lewis, fighting a slump that had limited him to nine hits this season. But he turned on that curveball from Tyler Ferguson and ended the skid.

“It was good to see the ball hit the grass or the dirt [or] the wall,” Lewis said. “Just anything other than a glove.”

His teammates erupted in celebration at the hit.

“Everyone was fired up. He’s had some good swings. A few of them, they haven’t fallen for him, and [his teammates] have seen him putting in the work,” Baldelli said. “When you see a guy putting in the work and it’s one of your brothers out there, it really gets you going, like you’re the one getting the hit.”

The game drew only 8,487 to Sutter Health Park, the smallest crowd to see the Twins in a non-COVID year since 7,106 attended a May 18, 2022, game — appropriately enough, in Oakland.