Jim Souhan: On their feet, fans grasp the worth of important baseball

Those complaining about the weakness of the American League Central probably complain about handicap ramps. There's nothing wrong with helping the infirm.

Baseball needs a place to keep its weaker teams, and the Northern League is full.

Friday night, because of the apparent gravitational pull of the Central, we experienced an actual big baseball game in the Metrodome, a reprieve from a season of injuries and drudgery, a reminder of just how inexorable and unpredictable a season can be when you play 162 games in six months.

Friday night, strangely, the Twins and Tigers played the only game in baseball that could help decide a division race.

The fans grasped this. They gave the Twins a standing ovation before the game. Actually, they gave the announced Twins' lineup a standing ovation. Even Nick Punto.

The crowd offered another standing ovation a couple of hours later, as rookie Brian Duensing left the mound in the seventh with a 3-0 lead, and another as Joe Nathan belly-crawled through the ninth to finish a 3-0 victory. "The Dome was rocking tonight," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.

The Twins would not be in the race in any other division, but we shouldn't spend too much time fretting about their record.

We watched the 1987 Twins flounder on the road and win the woeful AL West with 85 games, and they, of course, went on to bring a first World Series championship to Minnesota.

We watched the Twins fall apart after the 1992 season -- thank you, Eric Fox -- and become a perpetually rebuilding franchise in the mid- and late '90s. Many of us swore then that we would be forever satisfied by competent baseball in the Dome.

The 2009 Twins haven't impressed, but they have displayed the buoyancy of a bobber, incessantly rising to the surface after being dragged under.

So Friday, we watched the Twins play a meaningful game with Michael Cuddyer ensconced at first base, Duensing easing through the Tigers' lineup, Jose Morales at DH and an around-the-horn trio of Matt Tolbert, Orlando Cabrera and Punto.

It's the kind of lineup that would anger Major League Baseball if you sent it to a road game during spring training, yet, with Cuddyer looking like Harmon Killebrew this week, and Duensing looking like what Glen Perkins was supposed to be, the Twins won their fifth in a row to match their high-water mark of three games over .500.

"This is fun stuff. This is good-time baseball. This is the big time. As Joe Mauer says, this is major league baseball, boys, let's go."

Then Mauer reminds Cuddyer that he's playing first base these days.

Somehow Justin Morneau's back injury has revitalized the lineup. Morneau was mired in one of his September slumps. Since replacing him, Cuddyer has responded with nine hits in 20 at-bats, including three homers and 10 RBI, while playing first.

Tigers rookie Rick Porcello and Duensing dueled until the bottom of the fourth, when Cuddyer's rocket to left gave the Twins a 2-0 lead.

Entering Friday, the Twins were 9-2 when Morneau missed a game, a statistic as perplexing as the Twins' season.

That's Justin Verlander, the Tigers' ace, who will face journeyman Carl Pavano today at the Dome as Twins fans enjoy their Indian Summer.