Game 163: One for the ages

It's amazing what can happen when you put two flawed teams on the same baseball diamond. The Minnesota Twins won their first game of the regular season on an Alexi Casilla walk-off single. Five months later, the Twins won their final game of the regular season on an Alexi Casilla walk-off single.

Last season, the Twins were in a Game 163 against the Chicago White Sox. Casilla was the final batter retired. On Tuesday night, Casilla had the last at-bat, but knocked in the game-winning run.

Funny how things like that work out, isn't it?

With the eyes of the baseball world fixed upon the Metrodome Tuesday night, the Twins and Detroit Tigers put on a show that will be remembered for many years to come. Some sports writers are already calling this the best game of the decade for Minnesota, while it is certainly one of the best games in all of baseball this year.

Considering that this was a full-fledged elimination game between two division rivals, I'd be hard-pressed to argue.

The first several innings were completely one-sided, despite the closeness of the score. Detroit's 20-year-old rookie pitcher Rick Porcello was lights-out in his five-and-two-thirds innings of work, allowing just one earned run on four hits. He struck out a career-high eight Twins' batters.

While I could argue that he received some questionable strike zone calls from home-plate umpire Randy Marsh, there is no denying that Porcello is one of the main reasons the Tigers dominated the first six innings.

Miguel Cabrera is the other. He went 2-5 on the night, but his two-run blast in the third inning silenced the 54,088 fans in attendance. (Coincidentally, this last regular-season game in Metrodome history was also the highest-attended.)

Off-the-field issues aside, Cabrera is one of the best right-handed batters in the league. The fact that he is just 26 years old is hard to believe, but he upped the Detroit lead to 3-0.

Minnesota used eight pitchers in the game, and manager Ron Gardenhire also utilized three pinch-hitters and runners. It was obvious Gardenhire knew that saving pitchers for tomorrow would be a fruitless exercise if they were eliminated tonight.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland, however, made some questionable decisions in the game. Perhaps the most noticeable was in the seventh inning, when Orlando Cabrera launched a go-ahead, two-run homerun. At that point, it was the most important hit of the Twins' season, and they looked completely capable of holding on for the win behind the pitching of Matt Guerrier and Joe Nathan.

The Tigers fought back, though, and $18-million-man Magglio Ordonez tied the game with a solo shot of his own in the eighth. As a die-hard Minnesota fan, I was sure my blood pressure had never been higher.

Detroit scored another go-ahead run in the top of the tenth, putting the pressure on the Twins in the bottom half of the inning. The Twins managed to score the tying run, however, and had a great chance to win the game with runners on the corners and just one out. Nick Punto lined out to left field, however, and the speedy Casilla was thrown out at home after a horrendous jump.

The 11th inning was relatively uneventful, but the top of the 12th was the best chance the Tigers had of scoring a run all night. With the bases loaded and just one out, the Tigers managed to ground into a force-out at home. After batter Brandon Inge grounded to second base, the runner on third base, Cabrera, seemed to lazily trot home, as if he wasn't even expected a throw. Punto threw to Joe Mauer at home plate, however, to easily beat Cabrera and retire the second batter of the inning.

Twins' pitcher Bobby Keppel struck out Laird to end the twelfth inning without allowing a run. After a stop like that, how could the Twins not use that momentum to win the game in the bottom of that inning?

Carlos Gomez led off with a single and was advanced to second by a Michael Cuddyer groundout. Delmon Young was then walked, and Casilla stepped to the plate. We all know what happened next: a single was laced to left-center field and Gomez raced around third and scored the game-winning, division-clinching run.

Reading what I wrote as I type it, I can't help but realize that no amount of electronic ink can do this game justice. If you weren't able to watch this game live, you missed out on perhaps the best baseball game of the year.

Here's hoping you TiVo'd it.

Andrew Kneeland is a junior at the Arizona Virtual Academy. He is an intern at the Green Valley News.