It had the makings of an I-was-there sort of finish, a comeback that fans talk about all season long, the sort that turns a terrific season into a magical one.
And then it slipped away.
Byron Buxton blasted a game-tying home run into the bullpens in the bottom of the ninth inning Wednesday, completing the Twins' comeback from a five-run deficit. But three errors in the 10th inning allowed Seattle to score three unearned runs, and the Twins fell to the Mariners, 9-6.
"We've been good defensively. But what we saw tonight is definitely going to happen," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said after the Twins lost in extra innings for the first time this year. "We're going to see several games like this over the course of the season."
Well, hopefully not exactly like this. The Twins hadn't committed five errors in a game in a quarter-century, since June 4, 1994, when they overcame five miscues to beat Detroit anyway, 21-7.
The comeback was worth remembering, though. The Twins were frustrated all night, first by an ex-teammate, then by their defense, and they trailed 6-1 in the eighth, their lone run coming on a Marwin Gonzalez homer.
But Max Kepler homered in the eighth inning, and four of the next five Twins singled, cutting the deficit to 6-4. And in the ninth, after Miguel Sano opened the inning against Anthony Bass with a single, Buxton turned on a low-and-outside slider and rocketed it 432 feet, electrifying what remained of a crowd of 25,909.
It only tied the score, however, and things got ugly from there. Dee Gordon led off the 10th with a ground-rule double off Tyler Duffey. After a walk and a sacrifice bunt put two runners in scoring position, Mallex Smith hit a hard grounder to first baseman C.J. Cron, who threw home.