The hope was that Twins fans would be able to spend at least part of the summer watching shortstop Royce Lewis play for the team’s Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul this summer. On Wednesday, that possibility disappeared as the Twins announced their top prospect has a torn right ACL and will undergo surgery on Friday in the Twin Cities.

Lewis was feeling soreness in his right knee when he arrived at spring training and was given an MRI that revealed the tear.

Derek Falvey, the Twins’ president of baseball operations, told reporters the typical timeline is 9 to 12 months before a player can return. It will mark the second consecutive year in which Lewis won’t play in a game. He spent last season training with the Twins’ squad that was in St. Paul as the minor leagues were shutdown because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lewis, who will turn 22 in June, was the top pick by the Twins in the 2017 MLB draft. In 2019, Lewis slashed .236/.290/.371 with 12 home runs and 49 RBIs in 127 games at Single-A and Double-A.

The Twins signed veteran shortstop Andrelton Simmons to a one-year contract this offseason with the hope that Lewis might be ready for the big leagues in 2022.

Lewis said he'd been feeling some soreness while doing offseason drills, and then he slipped on some ice during the recent storms in Texas to exacerbate it. Falvey said it's hard to know where specifically the issue started.

— Do-Hyoung Park (@dohyoungpark) February 24, 2021