11:24 AM: Less than 24 hours after replacing him on the major league roster with Royce Lewis, the Twins have recalled infielder Jose Miranda to take Lewis’ place, the team announced. The move gives Miranda another chance to establish himself in the bigs, though his path to playing time is much less clear.
First promoted in early May, Miranda has gotten off to a slow start in the majors, logging a .164/.200/.284 triple-slash in 70 trips to the plate. He’s posted a stronger .256/.295/.442 line in 95 plate appearances at Triple-A St. Paul, though he’s not yet come close to matching the combined .344/.401/.572 he posted between St. Paul and Double-A Wichita in 2021.
9:15 AM: Just one day after being recalled from the minors, Royce Lewis is going to be placed on the injured list due to a bone bruise on his right knee. The corresponding move appears to be a recall of Jose Miranda, as Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press relays that he is starting today’s game. Miranda was just optioned yesterday when Lewis was recalled. Position players normally cannot return until 10 days after being optioned, though exceptions are made for IL placements and doubleheaders. Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune relays word from manager Rocco Baldelli that Lewis’s injury doesn’t appear to be overly serious, it’s just that the team needs every position on the roster for schedule reasons.
On May 20, the Twins began a stretch of playing 18 games in 17 days, thanks to tomorrow’s doubleheader in Detroit. Given that grind and a number of injuries to the pitching staff, the club is currently carrying just 12 position players on the active roster. With that short three-man bench, they can’t afford to use a spot on a player that’s going to be unavailable, even if it’s just for a few days.
Dan Hayes of The Athletic confirms the imminent IL placement, noting that the upcoming trip to Toronto is playing a factor as well. It was reported yesterday that the club expects “a few” players won’t be able to cross the border into Canada due to their unvaccinated status, which could further handcuff the team in the coming days.
Lewis started out his MLB career on a good note, but got demoted once Carlos Correa returned from injury to retake the regular shortstop duties. After his demotion, he got a bit of practice in the outfield and started in center field for the Twins yesterday before his injury. In 12 big league games so far, he’s hitting .300/.317/.550 for a wRC+ of 150.
That’s one way to accrue service time….hope for a speedy recovery….
And money.
He’s already missed a lot of time to injury and still looks great. Take the 10 days to heal up, no big deal. Miranda was starting to heat up anyway so hopefully he can keep it going
Could be coincidence , need some roster shuffling because of unvaxed players not going to TO. If Lewis is not vaccinated, convenient, if he is vaccinated unfortunate injury for the young man. We will never know if he’s vaxxed or not. None of our business anyways.
That’s some random speculation. He hit that wall pretty hard, so I doubt this a “convenient” injury. And if there were a vaccination issue, they probably wouldn’t have called him up a day before leaving for Canada.
everything is a scandal to some people. some things just happen.
Lewis grabbed his knee after he hit the wall and was removed after the half-inning ended, so I’m sure he’s legitimately hurt.
Yes, my point was that if ( we don’t know) he’s not vaxxed, and the bruise was a three or four day heal , they could use the dl. See Baldeli’s comments regarding upcoming toronto trip.
Ed, article also says 18 games in 17 days. Which means all hands on deck
They’re bringing Miranda back instead of Kirilloff, who’s been hitting well at St. Paul. I guess this means they want to see his productivity sustained for a bit longer before bringing him back to the Bigs.
Miranda is not a big league player defensively, yet. Needs some work.
Guy raked in AAA with the bat.