{"id":111137,"date":"2025-09-01T16:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T16:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/111137\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T16:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T16:15:09","slug":"royce-lewis-few-hits-have-frequently-been-timely-for-minnesota-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/111137\/","title":{"rendered":"Royce Lewis\u2019 few hits have frequently been timely for Minnesota Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

A day later, Ryan Fitzgerald<\/a> said his pitching arm felt fine. Shows you the benefit of averaging 55 mph with your fastball.<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald, a 31-year-old rookie utility infielder, was called upon to get the Twins\u2019 final three outs of Saturday\u2019s 12-3 blowout loss to the Padres<\/a>. He succeeded beyond his own expectations, retiring Luis Arraez on a popup and Mason McCoy and Ryan O\u2019Hearn on hard-hit fly balls \u2014 all in nine pitches.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can do it, anybody can,\u201d Fitzgerald said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Four other pitchers faced the Padres in that game, and each of them gave up at least one run. Which is how he got the chance \u2014 once the Twins\u2019 deficit reached eight runs, manager Rocco Baldelli<\/a> was allowed to use a position player on the mound. It\u2019s an assignment that Jonah Bride, Willi Castro and Kody Clemens have already fulfilled this year, saving innings from an overworked bullpen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to figure out if I was going to go in for Royce or Brooks [Lee], somebody to pinch hit for, so I was getting ready for that,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cThen [bench coach] Jayce [Tingler] said, \u2018Hey, you\u2019re probably going to pitch, so go warm up.\u2019 I went in the cages and got a couple of throws in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a task he hadn\u2019t attempted in about 15 years, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day later, Ryan Fitzgerald said his pitching arm felt fine. Shows you the benefit of averaging 55…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-111137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}