The Twins’ veterans were soaking in the incredible comeback victory, the sweep, the return to first place — all of it Thursday night. But they tried keeping the clubhouse focused on what lies ahead this weekend.

The Royals are 11-2 in their past 13 games and they’ll arrive at the Metrodome on Friday as a young team with nothing to lose.

“Tomorrow night’s just as important as tonight was,” Michael Cuddyer said. “We can’t forget what the Royals did for us in 2006, going into Detroit and sweeping [helping the Twins win the division title]. We have to remember that. We have to ride this emotion tonight and settle back down and focus tomorrow.”

The White Sox, meanwhile, are a much different team at home — just like the Twins — and they’ll be playing host to Cleveland.

“That’s a pretty good team over there [in the Chicago clubhouse],” Justin Morneau said. “They haven’t played [158] games just to go away at the end, so we can’t be satisfied.”

The Twins’ magic number to clinch the the division title is 4 — meaning any combination of Twins wins and White Sox losses totaling four, and Chicago will be eliminated.

“We still know we’ve got some work to do,” Joe Nathan said.

(*) X-rays on Kevin Slowey’s right wrist were negative, but Manager Ron Gardenhire said he was concerned. Slowey is very sore and will have an MRI exam today. Slowey was slated to pitch the one-game playoff against Chicago on Tuesday (if necc.), but now his availability for that start — or Round 1 of the playoffs — is in doubt.

(*) You wouldn’t have known the Twins have serious bullpen issues by watching the Chicago series. Their relievers allowed two runs on six hits in 12 1/3 innings. On Thursday, they allowed four hits and no walks in 6 1/3 innings.

(*) Batting race update: Joe Mauer went 3-for-5, raising his AL-best average to .330. Dustin Pedroia is at .325. (Corrected from earlier.)

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