Royce Lewis’ two homers lift St. Paul past Indianapolis 7-6

Royce Lewis keeps making the same case in a louder voice: his bat is too dangerous to stay quiet for long. Another two-homer night carried the St. Paul Saints to a 7-6 escape over Indianapolis on Tuesday night at CHS Field, and the performance did more than pad a Triple-A box score. It sharpened the question hanging over Minnesota: how long can the Twins afford to keep waiting on a hitter producing this kind of damage?

Lewis drove in four runs and powered St. Paul from the middle of the lineup, launching a three-run homer in the third inning and a solo shot in the seventh. The third-inning blast left the bat at 114.1 mph, the second-hardest hit ball of his career. For a player who had already been optioned to Triple-A after a rough big-league start and had earlier worked back from a sprained left knee, it was the sort of night that looks less like a rehab stop and more like a reminder.

Kaelen Culpepper opened the scoring by leading off the game with his 13th home run of the season, giving St. Paul its sixth leadoff homer of the year. That total is tied for the most in baseball, and it set the tone for a Saints lineup that kept piling on. By the time Lewis went deep for the second time, St. Paul had built a 7-1 lead and appeared on its way to a comfortable finish.

Indianapolis made sure it was anything but comfortable. The Indians scored five runs in the eighth, punctuated by Davis Wendzel’s grand slam, and a Saints throwing error turned a rout into a one-run game. St. Paul still finished the job, with Raul Brito handling the ninth inning and stranding a walk and wild-pitch situation to secure the save.

The Saints improved to their third straight win and fourth in their last five, but Lewis remains the central storyline. He now has nine home runs in 12 Triple-A games this season, including two games from his April rehab assignment, and he is hitting .333 with a 1.354 OPS for St. Paul. During that rehab stint, he homered in his first plate appearance. Nights like this are why the organization keeps feeling the pull: Lewis is not just producing, he is forcing the timeline. St. Paul and Indianapolis were set to meet again Wednesday at 1:07 p.m. CDT in the second game of a six-game series, but the larger clock is the one running in Minnesota.