After sweeping the second-place Chicago White Sox in Chicago the third week of September, the Twins clinching the American League Central Division was all but assured. Thanks to 8 straight losses by the White Sox, the Twins were able to officially clinch the Central Division at home on September 21, 2010. This is the 6th division championship for the Twins in the last 9 seasons and the Twins were the first team this season in Major League Baseball to clinch their respective division. The Twins came into September 21 with a Magic Number of 2, meaning a Twins win and White Sox loss would clinch the division title. With the White Sox on the west coast, the Twins would need to wait until after their game finished to know if they had won the division. However, they first needed to win against the Cleveland Indians.
In the 8th inning, the Twins found themselves on the losing end of a 4-2 ball game. Thanks to hits by Jim Thome, Delmon Young, Danny Valencia, Denard Span, and Orlando Hudson the Twins were able to score 4 runs in the 8th inning. This gave Matt Capps a 6 to 4 lead to work with to save the win. Capps delivered with a 1-2-3 inning not only bringing the Twins Magic Number down to 1, but also giving Ron Gardenhire his 800th victory of his managerial career. All that was left to do was wait for the outcome of the White Sox game against the Athletics. By a score of 7 to 2, the Athletics officially ended the White Sox hopes of winning the division and clinched it for the Twins! I was able to get video of the Twins come back and post-game celebration from our seats. I was also at the game the next day where the Twins recapped the previous night’s events.
Just to highlight some of what you’ll see in the pictures I took at the game, before the game started the Plymouth Little League team that went to the Little League World Series was honored on the field. This team represented the entire Midwest Region at the LLWS and it was interesting to me since they came from Plymouth where I live. It’s extremely difficult to make it to the LLWS, so that was rather special. Other highlights include Jim Thome’s 589th career home run and Michael Cuddyer was ceremonially given the prize money from the Pepsi Refresh Project that he won thanks to the fans voting. Cuddyer was the Twins ambassador to the Pepsi Refresh Project where each Major League Team competed for grant money to support a community project. Thanks to the Twins fans’ votes, Cuddyer’s project to build a proper field for the Rolling Twins softball team won the $200,000 prize. He and the Twins organization was presented with the check before the game. Another interesting fact is that at this game, the season attendance officially surpassed 3 million and the next day the total season attendance would officially surpass the team season attendance record set in 1988. It’s been quite a season for the Twins and with the team officially playoff bound, there is a lot more to come hopefully.
Below is the link to the pictures I took at the game. Please enjoy!
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