When the Tigers won a week ago, as in last Wednesday, everybody thought the race for the AL Central was over.  No team in baseball history had come back from a three-game deficit with four to play.  Nobody.

As a result, nobody gave the Twins a shot.

But the Twins are used to being the underdog.  They’re a small-market team.  They rely on genius moves from the front office instead of overpaying superstars and buying your way to success (cough, Yankees, cough!).

Justin Morneau was gone for the year.  He was the protection behind Joe Mauer in the batting order and, even still, the Twins persevered.  Michael Cuddyer became a huge force.  So did Jason Kubel.  Denard Span stepped up.  That Twins bullpen worked wonders.

Meanwhile, the Tigers slowly buckled as the Twins picked up steam.  Detroit’s bullpen, even without the presence of Todd Jones, was  a frequent disaster waiting to happen.  Fu-Te Ni was solid but couldn’t be relied on past an inning.  Ryan Perry could be spectacular but was also wild.  Fernando Rodney and Brandon Lyon were just straight-up unpredictable.

And the offense?  On the brink of the AL Central title, Miguel Cabrera goes and hangs out with his buds from the White Sox and underperforms the entire series, to put it mildly, and he’s the guy that carried the Tigs offense all year.  Do you think the Twins would do this?  Well, they weren’t pleased with Jose Mijares in the Tigers series, but they got over that and united as one for one cause – to keep the hope alive.

Sure enough, the Tigs lost the lead and the AL Central title boiled down to one game.  Detroit fought valiantly.  They had their chances.  They had the lead more often than the Twins did.  Magglio Ordonez flashed the power that was so rare during the regular year, but little details – Curtis Granderson getting doubled off first… Ryan Raburn maybe going for a bit too much sliding to catch for a ball that turned into a Cuddyer leadoff triple that led to a tying run… Gerald Laird not showing enough plate discipline with the count at THREE balls with the BASES LOADED in the 12th.  And finally, in the bottom of the 12th, after pulling a Houdini about ten times (slight exaggeration), Alexi Casilla lifted the Twins to victory by driving home Carlos Gomez.

It was a microcosm of what had been taking place the entire final month of the regular year.

The Twins just wanted it more.  Sorry, Tigers fans, the Twins totally deserve this AL Central title.