The end of the regular season always saddens me. I love the rhythm of the daily game, the momentum of routine, the dozens of mundane moments. No one thing matters, but all of them combined do.
But there has to be a conclusion, and that conclusion arrived Sunday. The Twins wound up winning the AL Central title by eight games -- Cleveland, once eliminated from the division title, faded almost immediately from the wild card race as well. The Twins also got the single-season home-run record as well, with 307 bombas. The Yankees "only" got 306.
Both figures are, of course, insane.
The homer record overshadowed the actual outcome of Sunday's game, in which the Twins came from behind to lose. The bullpen culprits were Lewis Thorpe and Bursdar Graterol; when I suggested in the Monday print column that Kyle Gibson looks like the 13th pitcher for the postseason, it was with Thorpe and Graterol ahead of him.
My opinion on such things is meaningless to the people with the responsibility for making the decision, of course. And I'm pretty sure that nobody in the Twins dugout wanted extra innings on Sunday.
Yeah, that was a game we gave away. But 101 wins is pretty sweet (so much better than losing 103), and maybe beating the Yankees with HRs is a harbinger of beating them this time.
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