Out at home: Twins and high hopes for '09 are left in dust

Only five days earlier in the same building, the Twins had celebrated as unlikely division champions, looking like a team determined to defy all expiration dates.

They had outlasted Detroit in an epic, 12-inning tiebreaker and embraced their underdog role against the Yankees.

But Sunday night, the Twins' long goodbye to the Metrodome finally ended.

Carl Pavano matched Andy Pettitte in a surprising pitchers' duel, and Joe Mauer gave the Twins a sixth-inning lead. But Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada homered off Pavano in the seventh, and the Yankees pulled away for a Division Series-clinching 4-1 victory.

The Yankees advanced to their first AL Championship Series since 2004 and will play host to the Angels on Friday.

For the Twins, it was another three-and-out postseason, just like in 2006 against Oakland.

"Right now, it just stings," Mauer said. "It feels like we were just throwing champagne over everybody, and celebrating. Game 2 and Game 3 -- we feel like we could have easily won, so that's a little frustrating right now."

Though the Yankees led the majors with 103 regular-season wins, the Twins, with their 87 victories, will look back regretfully on all their missed chances. They went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position in Game 1, and stranded 17 runners over 11 innings in Game 2, when Joe Nathan surrendered a game-tying, two-run homer to Rodriguez in the ninth.

Game 3 also had its wasteful moments. Trailing 2-1 in the eighth, the Twins got a leadoff double from Nick Punto and failed to score.

Denard Span chopped an infield single over the mound, but Punto overran third base and got trapped when shortstop Derek Jeter calmly bounced a throw to Posada at the plate.

Punto slammed on the brakes and tried diving back to third, but Posada threw to Rodriguez for the out. When Punto heard the crowd's roar, he thought the ball was through the infield. His mistake was keeping his head down and not picking up third base coach Scott Ullger's stop sign until too late.

Orlando Cabrera flied to center against Phil Hughes, and Yankees closer Mariano Rivera shattered Mauer's bat on an inning-ending grounder.

"Nick Punto -- no one feels worse than him," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.

The Twins opted not to use Nathan to start the ninth inning, even though the Yankees' lead as a road team meant there would not be a save situation.

Ron Mahay, Jon Rauch and Jose Mijares each walked a batter, loading the bases with one out before Gardenhire finally turned to Nathan, who gave up RBI singles to Posada and Robinson Cano.

Gardenhire said pitching coach Rick Anderson "wanted to go left-right, left-right, and I got real tired of going out there, to tell you the truth. You can't walk people ... and we ended up putting Nathan in a stupid situation with the bases loaded."

Earlier, the game belonged to Pavano and Pettitte, who traded zeros for five innings. Mauer's two-out RBI single in the sixth gave the Twins a 1-0 lead, but after his early brilliance, Pavano couldn't hold it.

He retired Mark Teixeira to start the seventh, but Rodriguez followed with a game-tying homer. Pavano struck out Hideki Matsui -- setting a Twins postseason record with his ninth strikeout -- but Posada followed with another opposite-field home run for a 2-1 lead.

Pavano pitched seven innings in the loss. He said he never would have believed the Twins would get swept, coming off a 17-4 finish to the regular season.

"We got beat by the team that had the best record in the big leagues," Pavano said, "so what are you gonna do?"

After the final out, the Yankees held a muted on-field celebration. An announced crowd of 54,735 left the stadium quietly, and Nathan took one last walk to the mound, scooping up some dirt. He planned to sprinkle it on the mound at Target Field.

"I'm going to try to bring what I can to the new one so hopefully we can play like we did here over there," Nathan said.