I can’t believe the first regular season at Target Field is already over. It felt like Opening Day this year would never get here, but now it’s October. The good news is that the Twins season is not over yet! For the 6th time in the last 9 years, the Twins are Central Division Champions and will be playing in the postseason. I’ll save that for a later post though as right now the Twins are just gearing up for the Divisional Series against the Yankees.
The Twins closed out their regular season at Target Field with a four-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays. If you can imagine near-perfect fall weather, that’s what we had the entire weekend. Every day of the four-game series was sunny, but there was the crisp feeling of fall in the air. Even though the highs were only in the upper 50’s or low 60’s, as far as being outdoors in late September in Minnesota it’s hard to ask for better weather.
As for the games, the Twins were focused more on preparing for the playoffs so a lot of the regular starters only played part of the games. Unfortunately, the Twins lost 3 of the 4 games, but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t some excitement. In the first game of the series Jose Bautista, who ended the season with an MLB leading 54 homeruns, showed us why he’s leading the league in homeruns. With the bases loaded, he hit a towering grand slam that landed in the 3rd deck in left field. I don’t recall ever seeing a homerun land that high up at Target Field. I managed to capture Bautista’s grand slam swing here:
The one game the Twins did win over this final weekend certainly brought everyone to their feet. In the bottom of the 9th and the Twins down to their final out…no, their final strike, to not just one batter, but to three different batters, the Twins never gave up. With 2 outs and a runner on second base, the Twins battled to earn two full count walks to load the bases for Alexi Casilla. You might remember that Casilla has been known to come up big in these situations in the past. In 2008, Casilla provided the walk-off base hit against the White Sox late in the season to complete a series sweep that put the Twins in first place in the division over the White Sox. In 2009, of course, he provided the 12th inning division winning hit in the now famous Game 163 against the Tigers. Casilla came up big once again Saturday providing a single into center field scoring the tying and game winning runs for a walk-off victory. Jess helped me capture video of the winning hit and celebration from our seats, take a look:
So the regular season has ended for Target Field’s inaugural season, but the Twins looked back by showing a video they put together highlighting moments over the course of the season at their new ballpark. Before we start the playoffs, check out some of the moments that helped settle us into the first season at Target Field (sorry for the quiet sound, not easy to get great sound from a point-and-shoot camera):
Here are the links to the galleries for each game.
Link: Twins vs. Blue Jays, September 30, 2010
Link: Twins vs. Blue Jays, October 1, 2010