Twins manager Ron Gardenhire rubbed the champagne out of his eyes as he reflected on the wild ride of the past five months that had concluded with the franchise's third world championship following another epic seven-game World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

"I've never had as much fun managing a team as I have these past five months," Gardenhire said. "But I've never been as miserable managing a team as I was the first two months."

So, what keyed the turnaround?

"No. 1 was getting healthy," Gardenhire said. "It was ridiculous there for awhile. They should have just called us the Red Wings. I'd never seen anything like it. Once we got our horses back, we started to play like we expected to. Then we started to get our bullpen straightened out as well as healthy. Chuck James was just a godsend. He gave us three strong lefties along with Glen Perkins and Jose Mijares. Then we could match up Slama with righties, who have a real tough time with his motion. Of course, just getting Joe Nathan healthy enough to resume his closer role was big so Cappy could go back to setting up.

"But what I think really helped us turn it up to a high level was getting back to Twins-brand baseball."

Was there any point in the season to point to that began the turnaround?

"That series in Kansas City in the beginning of June," Gardenhire said. "We had almost the entire starting lineup on the DL or on the bench with injuries, so we had almost no power at all in the lineup, so we talked to the guys about just being more aggressive with the small ball. Taking extra bases, hitting-and-running, bunting, that sort of thing.

"Lexi (Casilla) and Benny (Revere) really took to it.  It was fun to watch."

That series was during Casilla's resurgence. Casilla had nearly played himself off the roster with his terrible hitting and inconsistent defense the first six weeks of the season, but Casilla turned it around and became a key member of the Twins and formed an exciting double-play combo with Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Revere, of course, took advantage of the injuries and played so well he eventually displaced Delmon Young as the starting left fielder.

With Revere and then Nishioka added to the lineup along with Casilla and Denard Span, Piranhas II: The Comeback was born.

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in!

In all seriousness, this is why I love this sport. Moments like these. This is a historically bad baseball team right now and yet we still will have great memories from this season. You have Sizzlepop's amazing spot start that ends with a walkoff win Saturday night and then Francisco Liriano's no-hitter. Plus ... hmm ... well, that's all I can think of at the moment, but you get the idea.

What really made Saturday fun was Snapcracklepop seems like a guy that is really easy to root for. Pitchers are really taught to not show any emotion on the mound, but Swivelhips let it show through on occasion and you could really feel for him. You could tell he knew he got away with a bad pitch to the FOTF when he jerked his head around to see where it went (easy catch to Span) and then he let out a big sigh of relief when Cuddyer caught a ball on the warning track. He even showed a little frustration when the no-hitter was broken up on a hanging breaking ball. I feel for you, Slamdance!

I think it was fitting that he was filling in for Liriano, who had his no-hitter earlier this month. The Twins  now have four extra-inning wins and Danny Valencia has walk-off hits in two of them. He also had a go-ahead RBI hit in an extra-inning game, but the bullpen blew it (shocking, I know). Valencia is quickly becoming one of my favorite Twins, probably because Gardy seems to love to bag on him plus he's exceeded my original expectations for the most part. Plus, he's active on Twitter making himself more accessible to fans.

It was pretty ingenious of the Twins to figure out a way to win without forcing the bullpen to protect a lead. The bullpen has lost the last four games it has been given a lead to protect. The last Twins win before this one was Nick Blackburn's complete game.

But, for a night, it was fun to forget all about that and enjoy a well-played game and an exciting win.

Who do we blame? Who has done this to the Twins? Who did the Twins piss off to bring this horrible curse on themselves? Yes, the Twins have played horribly for the most part throughout this season, but they have also had hideously bad luck with injuries and illness to players they just can't afford to lose. Especially not all at once. Just when it seems like the Twins are finally getting healthy, their best reliever in a very shallow bullpen goes down. And this just after Jose Mijares has gone on the DL. Now the Twins are down to Matt Capps, Joe Nathan and ?????

And then there has been too much pure bad luck on the field. Too many line drives for outs for the batters (or double plays) and too many bloopers and bad bounces at just the wrong time.

Saturday's game featured the second straight game in which the Diamondbacks' late big inning featured not one but two bunts, and the Diamondbacks screwed up both of them. One was a terrible bunt that was popped up over the head of hard-charging Danny Valencia for a single. I mean, the D'backs were trying to give away an out with a runner already in scoring position, and instead they get a gift single, and there was nothing the Twins could do about it. What was really bad luck was the Twins had Valencia charging. Often with a runner at second, the third baseman lays back in hopes the pitcher or catcher can field the bunt and throw the runner out at third. If the Twins had chosen to use this defense, Valencia would have had an easy catch for the first out. Since the runner didn't advance on the infield single, the next batter, a rare pinch bunter, bunted and left it too close to home, so catcher Drew Butera jumped on it and threw to third base for the forceout.

The previous night, the Diamondbacks had runners at first and second and no outs and the batter attempted to bunt, but the Twins got the forceout at third. With the pitcher up, he did get a sacrifice down, and, after an unfortunate decision to intentionally walk Willie Bloomquist, Perkins allowed a three-run double to make a one-run deficit a four-run deficit. Of course, the Twins would eventually lose by just one run. Plus, you don't want to forget Jason Kubel's triple, which was hit to the only part of the ballpark that it wouldn't have been a home run.

As for Saturday's game, the Twins were perfectly set up with a three-run lead and Glen Perkins in to face three left-handers with only one runner on base. He comes up lame after a hit and suddenly Capps has to come in with no outs and the tying run on base. Other than the home run, I really don't think he pitched all that poorly. The double that made it a one-run game not only was butchered by Delmon Young (who has actually been pretty good defensively this year), but also was on a pitch that looked to be six inches outside. Then there were the two bunts and then a soft single to left and then the home run.

Capps may have blown up in the ninth if Perkins had gotten out of the eighth without injury, but I have to believe that having his routine suddenly changed. I'm sure he won't use that as an excuse, but I'm sure it didn't help any. I always get a bad feeling when a pitcher comes in after an injury and is given as many pitches as he needs that the pitcher doesn't use as many as he should to get ready since all eyes are on him and he probably realizes he's the one holding up the game.

Another frustrating issue, in this series the Twins have hit five home runs; all solo shots. And it's not like they haven't had runners on base.

Looking at it another way, the Diamondbacks had five errors, struck out nine times and allowed two home runs and won.

Can someone find me a live chicken to send to Gardy?

It just better be Chuck James getting the call up this time, because Dumatrait has done nothing to make me feel like he can be trusted to be a LOOGY in the eighth inning. I'm also expecting Brian Duensing to be sent to the bullpen and either Slowey moved into the rotation or sent to AAA in favor of another starting pitcher, although Kyle Gibson hasn't been very good of late. I guess Manship could be recalled and he or Smartyak put into the rotation.

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Twins set a major league record Saturday by stranding 33 base runners in a 9-3, 11-inning loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday.

The Twins also continued their losing streak, which extended to 37 games, also a record to start a season. Reliever Glen Perkins dropped to 0-8 after allowing a leadoff single in the 11th. Perkins was pulled from the game and the Blue Jays proceeded to hit five consecutive home runs to put the game away.

With his bullpen overworked and ineffective, manager Ron Gardenhire was forced to bring in reliever Kevin Slowey, who normally is a right-hander but was forced to use his left arm to pitch. With his right arm in a sling, Slowey wore catcher's gear in hopes that if a ball came back to him, he could knock it down with his body and throw it with his healthy arm.

Fortunately, it never came to that as the Jays batters were laughing too hard at Slowey to swing the bat and Slowey struck out all three batters he faced on just nine pitches.

TV analyst Bert Blyleven was heard to remark about Slowey, "Not too bad, but he needs to work on keeping the ball down."

The heartbreaking loss was followed by even more bad news when six more players were put on the disabled list following the game, also a major league record. All six had broken wrists after slapping hands with Michael Cuddyer after he homered in the seventh, which was the first by a Twin other than Jason Kubel on the season. In fact, it was the first hit by a non-Kubel to leave the infield this season.