The Twins (17-17) pulled within one game of first place tonight, behind co-leaders Detroit and Kansas City, which lost its fifth straight in Oakland. That Royals game ended before Joe Crede hit his walk-off grand slam here at the Dome.

At 13 innings (and four hours, 48 minutes) it was the longest game of the season for the Twins.

“The guys are a little nuts out there in the clubhouse,” Manager Ron Gardenhire said. “It was a long night of beating each other up, and to win that ballgame’s huge.”

The Twins have to face Justin Verlander in less than 12 hours. He is 3-0 with a 0.39 ERA and 31 strikeouts in his past three starts.

“Any time you play those kind of games, you at least want to come out on top,” Crede said. “Everybody’s tired, especially thinking you’ve gotta come back in 12 hours and play another game.”

Other tidbits from the Twins’ postgame notes:

(*) Since Joe Mauer’s return on May 1, the Twins are averaging 6.17 runs per game. Without him, they averaged 4.23 runs per game.

(*) Justin Morneau has three home runs in his past five games, and nine for the season.

Note: Check La Velle’s blog for Thursday’s starting lineups.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 12:53 am and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.