What an emotional roller coaster Monday was for the Twins. Here’s the chronology:

5 p.m.: Justin Morneau has a CT-Scan on his back and learns he has a stress fracture of his L5 vertebrae. (Morneau had been sore for 3-4 weeks. An MRI over the weekend had shown swelling.) At that point he knows he’s done for the season. He won’t need surgery but the recovery time is three months.

6:30-7: Morneau arrives at Metrodome. Teammates ask: Thumbs up or thumbs down? Morneau tells them it’s thumbs down. They take the field, knowing the 2006 MVP is done for the year.

8:40: Aubrey Huff’s three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning ties it for Detroit, which had trailed 5-2 against Toronto. Twins trail Cleveland 3-0.

9:10: Detroit wins 6-5 in the 10th inning, reducing its magic number to clinch the AL Central to 14 games.

9:45: Michael Cuddyer’s three-run, eighth-inning homer off Chris Perez ties things at the Metrodome. Moments later, Perez throws a wild pitch, allowing Delmon Young to score the go-ahead run. Then, Jason Kubel hits a two-run, pinch-hit homer.

10:15: Twins win 6-3. Joe Nathan finishes off the ninth inning, after letting two batters reach with two outs, for his 39th save, as the Twins climb back to .500.

10:30: Manager Ron Gardenhire delivers the Morneau news to the media.

10:45: Morneau, who has been a go-to guy for reporters all season after wins and losses, comes out to talk to us on different terms. He’s well-aware that he batted .100 (7-for-70) in his final 20 games. We knew he’d been hurting, just not how much. He kept shrugging it off, saying nobody feels good in September.

Tonight, he said, “It’s been bugging me for a while. It’s one of those things where you can play through the pain if you feel like you’re doing something to help your teammates win ballgames, but when you go out there and you don’t feel like you’re helping anyone, that’s when you take a step back and go, alright, maybe I’m doing more harm than good.”

10:55: Cuddyer, the team’s conscience, summed it up: “It’s tough. You’re losing a former MVP and one of the stars of your team, so yeah, you’re not excited about the news by any means. But it’s not the time to mourn yet. You can’t say we’re done because we lost him. We’ve got to keep plugging along, and he’s going to be here cheering us on as hard as anybody.”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 at 11:52 pm 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.