The Twins put together a 9-2 lead after five innings of baseball on Sunday, but Kevin Slowey and Juan Rincon allowed them to creep back into things which set up an interesting ninth inning. Slowey struggled with his control early and manged to work out of some jams in the first two innings. He settled in a little bit, but allowed 3 home runs and left after pitching 5 1/3 and giving up 4 runs.

Matt Guerrier pitched a solid 1 2/3, but Rincon allowed 3 runs in his inning of work to allow the Brewers to move within 2 runs. That lead seemed safe with Joe Nathan on the mound for the ninth until Lew Ford lost a fly ball in the Metrodome roof, allowing Prince Fielder to chug around the bases for an inside-the-park homerun. Nathan continued to struggle and ultimately loaded the bases with no outs. Nathan got a big strikeout of Tony Graffanino before Craig Counsell hit a sac fly to tie the game. Nathan got out of the inning by striking out Corey Hart.

Justin Morneau led off in the bottom of the ninth and decided enough was enough. He hit a walk off homer to right field to save the Twins from being swept.

Early in the game Torii Hunter was hit in the hand by a Jeff Suppan. He came out of the game due to some bad swelling, but nothing was broken and he’ll be day-to-day. Lew Ford drove in a career hight 4 runs two hits in the game. Together, him and Morneau provided 7 of the Twins’ 10 runs.

Game Notes

• Morneau hit his 20th homer of the year and pushed his RBI count to 54
• Lew Ford doubled his RBI total for the season with 4. Jack Morris described it as a “month’s worth of RBIs for Lew”.
• The Twins have won all 4 of Kevin Slowey’s starts since he was called up. He’s gotten the decision in just two of them.
• Joe Nathan was charged with his second blown save of the year, but ultimately got his 3rd win of the season.
• Joe Mauer was 2 for 4 on the day with a walk. He scored all 3 times he reached base.
• Jeff Cirillo got the start at third base and had a nice 3 for 4 day at the plate.

Except for the White Sox, the entire AL Central won on Sunday. Throughout the weekend series the Twins held even with Cleveland (5.5 games back) and dropped by a game to Detroit, who trails the Indians by just a game.

The Twins will head to Shea Stadium to face a tough opponent in the Mets. The Indians will get Philadelphia while the Tigers will have it easy with the Nationals.