It finally happened. For the first time in about 19 years, the Minnesota Twins have won a playoff game. Rookie slugger Royce Lewis smacked two home runs to lift the team to a 3-1 win Tuesday over the Toronto Blue Jays, Minnesota's first postseason victory after losing 18 contests in a row. The team was visibly exuberant, and the fans were absolutely loving it — check out these on-site interviews with a handful of Minnesotans exiting the stadium.
Several of the fans interviewed by Jim Rich of Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul appeared borderline delirious — including the first one in the clip, who could barely bring himself to complete sentences as he breathlessly proclaimed the "curse" to be over. A rogue Padres fan even popped up, ironically enough, as his own team missed the postseason and will now be looking to reverse its own fortunes — although San Diego isn't sitting on a streak anything like the one Minnesota owned before Tuesday night.
Rich also remarked that Lewis is the first Twin with a multi-homer postseason game since Gary Gaetti in the 1987 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers, underscoring just how impressive his performance was. Rich noted that despite the cloudy weather, it felt as though the sun was shining over Target Field once more, as a massive weight has been lifted off the shoulders of the team itself as well as the fan base.
As Rich wrapped up his report, he was interrupted and even thanked by joyful Twins fans, who had stood by their team through so much and were clearly beyond thrilled to have been a part of such a historic ballgame. Near the end, he was accosted by a group that just about took over the broadcast and took an unprompted shot at the Yankees, by far the biggest culprits in causing the losing streak.
Rich decided to leave "before someone hurts [him]," but the party went on throughout the night in the Twin Cities. With two chances to win one more game against the Blue Jays — with both contests to be held at Target Field — the Twins just might keep making history and advance through a postseason series for the first time since 2002.
