The Twins have been embarrassed, frustrated and baffled by the bad baseball bug that has bit them late in the season and has them hurtling toward 100 losses.
But, Thursday night, they felt relief.
A couple of big blows enabled them to hold off the White Sox 8-5 at Target Field. It ended their losing streak at 13 games, one shy of the 1982 Twins for the longest losing streak in club history.
So, for the first time since Aug. 17 at Atlanta, the Twins shook hands on the field and smiled after a game. One great thing about baseball, there's always another game to get things right. But the mounting losses were too much to use the short-memory technique.
"There's no doubt about it," said third baseman Trevor Plouffe, who hit a two-run homer in the fifth inning to give the Twins a 7-2 lead. "You never want to put yourself in that position. We have been trying to take it one day at a time, but when the losses add up like that, it's hard to forget about them.
"We're happy it happened today."
And, no, there was no dance party in the Twins clubhouse after the streak-buster. Just the standard loud music.
The game was played before an announced crowd of 20,329 — but there appeared to be fewer than that at first pitch. The woebegone Twins have played themselves to the end of the list of options on a busy night in the Twin Cities. The Gophers football team and Vikings and the State Fair were in play Thursday night, better attractions than watching a baseball team that had been outscored by 129 runs in August.
