In possibly the best game I’d seen since the Diamonbacks beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series, the Twins showed the Tigers that their lead throughout the season meant nothing. Two days after the last scheduled regular season game, the Detroit Tigers lost the AL Central lead for good.
After Magglio Ordonez singled in Curtis Granderson, and Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run bomb, it appeared things were starting off the right way. Ricky Porcello dominated the Twins with eight strikeouts over five and two-thirds innings and left with the lead.
Porcello was removed from the game after Jason Kubel’s solo shot brought the game to within a run and the next batter Michael Cuddyer walked. His pitch count had reached 92 and it was time for him to go.
Three batters and a slight scare later, relief pitcher Zach Miner finished the sixth inning. Miner had allowed a single and hit a batter before inducing a bases-loaded fly ball out by Matt Tolbert to end the frame. Miner showed that his stuff wasn’t all there and that the worst could, in fact, happen with him on the mound. The next inning it did.
After Nick Punto walked to lead off the inning and Denard Span struck out, Miner left a navel-high slider over the middle of the plate and ‘The Great Irritator’ Orlando Cabrera deposited it into the first row of seats in left-center field. The lead had been handed over to the home-towners and all the momentum had gone with it.
Miner gave way to Fu-Te Ni who gave way to Brandon Lyon in the bottom of seventh. The Twins were held to those four runs until after the game should have gone final.
Magglio Ordonez’s solo homer in the eighth inning knotted things up again and gave the momentum back to Detroit. In the tenth, the Tigers scored the lead run when Brandon Inge’s double scored pinch-runner Don Kelly from first.
After misplaying a looping line drive – which wound up becoming a Triple by Michael Cuddyer – Ryan Raburn ended the inning with an outfield-assist-double-play. However Cuddyer had scored the tying run on Matt Tolbert’s single the batter before. It was Alexei Casilla who was pegged on the Raburn throw.
Now entering the eleventh inning, things were all tied up again and the game was boiling over with intensity. Tigers closer Fernando Rodney would stay in the game as the pitcher of record and the eleventh would go down without event.
The twelfth inning saw the Tigers come within a foot of taking the lead but fail, despite loading the bases with only one out. Miguel Cabrera was thrown out at the plate by second baseman Nick Punto after Brandon Inge’s chopper up the middle was snared. Gerald Laird struck out to end both, the inning, and the best chance the Tigers had to manufacture a run.
In the bottom half of the inning a Carlos Gomez single, a Cuddyer groundout – which moved Gomez to second – and an intentional walk set the stage for end. With one out, tenth inning replacement, Alexei Casilla singled in the speedy Gomez and that was all she wrote. 6-5 Twins.
This game brought about all of the emotions that make sports so addictive. With a record 54,088 fans screaming inside the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, the Twins pulled off one of the best late season runs in recent history. The Tigers, who were 17-16 since the first of September, didn’t necessarily hand the season away, but may have taken their lead – seven games on 9/07/09 – for granted.
The Twins became 21-11 since September 1 and honestly just seemed to have wanted it more- to speak in the standard sports cliché. They go into the New York with momentum, hot bats and, in my opinion, not a Popsicle’s chance in hell of winning a single game.
I respect the Twins and their fighting spirit. They have done everything they have had to do to claim the AL Central title from the Tigers, and they have done it with gusto.
Congratulations Minnesota – your flag is well deserved.
Now the race is all said and done and I can go ahead and follow my playoff pony. For your information: Since the All Star break I have had the Cardinals beating the Yankees in the series. The history tied up in such a series is enough to rescue this boring season and insert it firmly into the record books a year something great happened. The Cards and the Yanks have met five times prior with the Cards ahead 3-2 in the World Series series.
Thank you for reading my Detroit coverage this season. I’m sorry that I’ve had to prove that sometimes connecting all the bright spots does not form a playoff picture.
