Any article to tell the story of the Minnesota Twins' victory last night, clinching their 5th American League Central Division title since 2002, is an exercise in planned obsolesence.  In 10 hours, the Twins will begin the ALDS against the Yankees in their Stadium.

As my dad has said, it's all gravy from here.  I really do not know how to explain how, less than 4 weeks ago, unfathomable was a Twins' division championship this season.  The Twins were two games below .500 roughly a week and a half into SEPTEMBER.  

If you're paying attention, perhaps you've heard that the Twins are hot.  They arrived at this summit on a streak of 17 wins and 4 losses in their last 21 games.  The dirty little secret I'm not hearing is that all but one of those games were against another team in the AL Central division (lone exception: the lowly Oakland Athletics).   Clearly the Twins earned the title of Division champ, but that little fact about their hot streak should be considered before any of we Twins fans start losing ourselves in reverie of a miraculous advancement beyond this first round vs. the Yankee Machine.  Even without that knowledge, any Twins fan (and, by now, any baseball fan paying attention) should know how "well" the Twins have done against the Yankees in the lifetime of anyone currently 7-years-old.

If that's not enough, if you really want one more piece of evidence to convince you that the Twins earned the title of Overwhelming Underdog at the same moment they earned that of Division Champ, here's this nugget, exhibit A, Game 1's starting pitcher match-up:

Brian Duensing vs. C.C. Sabathia

Yep.

wait for it...

dramatic pause...

WHO is Brian Duensing?

Well, folks, Brian Duensing was scheduled to start game 162 of the regular season for the Twins.  Scheduled to start.  But when the import of game 162 became obvious, Twins' manager Ron Gardenhire opted to replace Duensing with veteran pitcher Carl Pavano.

So, who was the formidable opponent that Gardenhire did not want Duensing to face in such an important game?  The Kansas City Royals.

I won't milk it anymore.  Duensing was taken out of a start against the Kansas City Royals because the game was too important.  Now he is Gardenhire's only option in Game 1 of the playoffs against the Yankees.

Reflections On An Instant Classic

I have more thoughts on last night's Game 163 than I have time to record, they're not paying me to do this yet.

I felt mostly relief when the game was over.  The Twins came within 2 runs of a Division-Championship-by-way-of-Game-163 last season.  It was a bummer to lose it then and however much we feel like they had no business even making it to a Game 163 this season, it'd have been very tough to get that close again and once again come up short.  I gotta say the specter of that occurance felt much more grim to me than I hoped it would as I sat down to watch the game and especially after the Tigers took a 3-0 lead.  I felt it coming and the most exciting moment of the game for me was Orlando Cabrera's 2-run home-run that took the Twins from a 3-2 deficit to a 4-3 lead.  Until that point, my feeling was the Twins just couldn't win the game.  I was far from convinced the Twins would win it at that point, but for the first time in the game I was convinced that they could.  It was no surprise to me that the Tigers came right back to tie it and from that point to the game's end, I spent most of my time trying to manage my emotions, talking to myself, trying to keep a level-head, and, at the same time, trying not to try too hard to stay cool, trying to let myself "feel my feelings", lest I try too hard and become flustered and only more frustrated to be...  oh, who cares.

I agree with many of the commentators that Nick Punto's play on Brandon Inge's 11th-inning grounder, where Punto fielded a tough hop and immediately fired the ball from an awkward position, with the 2nd base ump nearly in his way, towards home plate just in time to prevent a go-ahead run for the Tigers, was the play of the game.

The previously-mentioned Brian Duensing is just one of many names on the Twins' patchwork roster that is barely familiar to most Twins fans, and completely baffling to anyone else... what kinda playoff team is made up of these people?  A fair amount of "these people" permanently etched themselves in Twins' lore last night and I have to think Bobby Keppel stands out the most of them.  

To those unfamiliar, Bobby Keppel is a pitcher that joined the Twins this season at some point, most likely from AAA, most likely not at the start of the season, and I am pretty sure he did nothing particularly noteworthy while on the team.  His performance won't quite put him alongside Don Larsen in the annals of October baseball, but, it was something.  

After getting the first out in the top of the 12th, Keppel basically did a perfect job creating what looked to be the Inning of Imminent Doom that should be recognizable to any baseball fan that has watched their fair share of these kinds of extra-inning affairs.  He hit a batter, gave up a double (really shoulda been a single but for a poor, but, in my mind, understandable, fielding decision by the Twins' Delmon Young) that gave the Tigers runners at 2nd and 3rd with only one out.  The Twins intentionally walked a batter to load the bases but hopefully set up a double-play.

Easily the most controversial play of the game followed.  Brandon Inge was not hit by a pitch.  But, not obvious in real time but obvious in replay, a good chunk of threads of his baggy jersey were clipped by the pitch.  By rule, Inge should've been awarded first base and the Tigers should've taken a 6-5 lead.  But the umpire did not call it.  Ball 1.  The Tigers futilely argued the call.  

Really?  Is that how you wanna win THAT game?  Inge gets game-winning RBI on baggy style of the 90's?  Sorry.  I'll be the first to admit it should've been a run for the Tigers, and I'll go to my grave saying baseball deserves better.  Yeesh.  INGE was not hit.  No harm done to Inge.  He just had a baggy jersey.  Thankfully it was not called and baseball DID get better.

Inge hit the grounder to Punto who made the aforementioned play of the game.  

Then Bobby Keppel permanently etched himself in Twins lore.  He promptly threw 2 balls to Gerald Laird.  Bases loaded.  Two outs.  2-0 count.  This situation favors a hitter, especially against a Bobby Keppel.  Keppel got a strike.  Then a ball.  3-1 count.  Laird watches strike two go by.  

3-2 count.  No way, Laird has to think, that Keppel is going to throw a Keppel-ball, one of those wasteful pitches nowhere near the strike zone.  He may be Bobby Keppel... but he's still Bobby Keppel and Bobby Keppel is in Major League Baseball.  Inge was not granted 1st base, the run that wins this game is NOT going to be walked-in.  A hittable pitch is coming, Laird must be thinking.

I can't do justice to the pitch Keppel threw or the moment the pitch hit Mauer's glove.  I don't know what pitch it was.  It was fast.  It looked like a fastball.  But it was a semi-sinking fastball.  If Laird had not swung, it had to be ball 4.  But it was not a Keppel-ball.  Bobby Keppel only threw it.  It was going to be close enough to the strike zone that a respectable hitter has to at least try to get a foul ball out of it.  As it left Keppel's hands it seemed well enough headed for the strike zone.  Respectable Gerald Laird swung at it, and his swing was the middle of the strike zone, but the pitch, as it got to home plate, most definitely was diving below the strike zone.  Laird missed and the inning was over.  The Tigers had left the bases loaded and the score was still 5-5.  "Unbelievable" was all the TBS announcer had to say, after taking about 4 seconds to find the right word.

One of the other commentators had remarked a few minutes earlier that if the Twins got out of that inning, then one had to feel Fate was on their side.

After Keppel's strikeout of Laird, that was definitely the feeling, and the Twins would validate it in the bottom half of the inning.

Michael Cuddyer's Ryan-Raburn-assisted triple was surreal.  Jason Kubel's towering homerun was jaw-dropping.  Rick Porcello was frustrating.  The double-play started by Orlando Cabrera may have upstaged, check that, DID upstage his two-run home-run for dramatic flair. 

Ugly Game?

I would like to spend more time than I have right now countering the idea, mostly proffered by ESPN Baseball Tonight analysts, that, while perhaps thrilling, this was also an "ugly" game.  It had what perhaps can be called "mistakes" which proved critical. 

Two "mistakes" that Baseball Tonight focused on were baserunning mistakes, one by Alexi Casilla, other by Curtis Granderson.  I'll grant that if taken to trial and carefully deliberated with all evidence weighed, a jury of their peers may find the runners guilty of "mistakes", but, again, with limited time for me to devote to details, I have to say that both mistakes were made after the hitter hit what clearly could've been mistaken for a line-drive headed towards the gap.  This was a game where obviously each player wants desperately to make the absolute right decision at crucial moments and these players did not.  In both cases the runners should've retreated to their base but did failed to in time.  Granderson barely had half a second to think.  A line drive was hit hard and it seems to me his instincts told him "base hit" and he went running, but the ball was caught and he was doubled off.  Casilla failed to retreat to 3rd base immediatel in time for a tag.  With how hard the ball was hit, and how far it did not go, it would be reasonable for the thought that it was not far enough to tag, and/or that it was a line drive headed for the gap, to cross Casilla's mind.  My guess is, consciously or not, such thoughts came to Casilla and resulted in an unfortunate shimmy off the base, rather than immediate retreat to tag.  Instead Casilla was victimized by what was probably the best play of the game by the Tigers.  Casilla and Granderson were both the victims of thrilling double-plays.

To me, those and anything else that could be pointed out as blunders were also examples of professional but perhaps not the best-of-the-best athletes playing hard in a tense game.  Every play I can think of that could be called a blunder could equally be described as players conscious of the deep consequences of the game and taking a bit of a gamble and losing, such as Delmon Young's split-second decision to throw to third base rather than 2nd in the 12th inning, or Raburn's unfortunate awkward-slide-attempt to make a great catch on Cuddyer's 10th inning hit to left field (resulted in a triple for Cuddyer cause the ball got past Raburn).  Both of those instances were close calls, where a not-good chance, but a definite chance, existed to make a great play, the players went for it and it cost them.  Nick Punto made a similar play, odds a little more, but not much more, in his favor, on his "play of the game".  The throw could've easily been more off-target, the run could've scored and the bases could still be loaded afterwards.  But he made a superb throw and so the play will forever be brilliant.  Had Raburn caught the ball or Young gotten the out at 3rd, (and, again, both plays were possible, especially Raburn's) those plays are perhaps considered "game-saving" by their teams.  

Brandon Inge, on the losing side, said after the game that he did not think it was the kind of game where you look back and regret what you failed to do.   He said he only saw his team giving their absolute best efforts and coming up a little bit short.

I agree with Inge.  This was not a World Series game played by 100-win dominators of their leagues.  This was one game to determine the winner of this season's weakest division in baseball, played by, clearly, that division's two best teams.  Even the mistakes reflect intense play.  The efforts can only be applauded.  And the game that resulted from those efforts and unofficially ushered in this season's playoffs has to be marveled at.  What a postseason awaits if equal thrills are yet to come.