Twins’ Royce Lewis narrowly misses grand slam vs. Angels

Mired in an abysmal slump, the worst prolonged one of his young career, Royce Lewis nearly broke out of it in a big way Wednesday night.

Lewis, 25, came into the Minnesota Twins’ game against the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night hitting just .120 with 11 strikeouts in his last seven games and .202 with a .309 slugging percentage and 28 strikeouts over the last 30 days. In all of September, he had just one home run and four runs batted in — the lone homer and three of those RBI coming back on Sept. 1.

He nearly doubled those numbers with one swing on Wednesday night.

With the Twins leading the Angels 4-3 in the seventh inning at Target Field, Minnesota loaded the bases and up came Lewis, who has slugged five grand slams in his career, reaching that total quicker than anyone else in MLB history.

And even with the slump he’s been in, it looked like Lewis added another one to that tally.

On the second pitch of his at-bat, Lewis smoked a 1-0 sinker to left-center field and rounded the bases.

Unfortunately for him and the Twins, the home run call on the field was reviewed and subsequently overturned as replay showed the ball hit the very top edge of the wall and remained in play, making it a two-run double instead of a grand slam.

Still, it put the Twins up 6-3 and maybe, just maybe, it can snap Lewis out of his slump.

He may not have ended up with grand slam No. 6 of his career but it only seems like a matter of time before that comes.

Lewis said early this season that he doesn’t do slumps. While that hasn’t proven to be true as a whole, it’s certainly accurate in bases loaded situations.