Photo by Tom Dahlin |
The Minnesota Twins finished off their storybook regular season on Sunday by beating the Chicago White Sox 5-1 while the Detroit Tigers lost for the third straight time to the Kansas City Royals. The combination of the Twins victory and the Tigers defeat gave Minnesota its 4th American League Central Division title in 5 years. It's the first time the Twins have been in first place by themselves all season. They become the first team in Major League history to do that on the final day of the season.
The Twins 2006 division title came despite the fact that they trailed the first place Tigers by as many as 12 games and played most of the last 6 weeks of the season without veteran starter Brad Radke and rookie sensation Francisco Liriano.
The story got even better on Sunday when Joe Mauer finished the season hitting .347 to win the American League batting title. He becomes the first catcher in American League history to win a batting title and the first catcher to ever lead the majors in hitting. It also marks the 12th time that a Twin has won the batting title (Rod Carew 7, Tony Oliva 3, Kirby Puckett 1).
After beating the Sox Sunday afternoon, the Twins returned to the field to watch the end of the Tigers/Royals game on the Metrodome's Jumbotron screens along with about 35,000 of their fans. When the last out was recorded in Detroit, the Twins held their second celebration in less than a week. This time the hoopla included circling the stadium giving high fives to fans who were lined up around the field.
Sunday's happenings means the Twins will have home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs against Oakland. Minnesota will host the A's at noon on both Tuesday and Wednesday for games one and two. The series shifts to Oakland on Friday.
