Twins – Target Field had never seen an October like this one, and the walls of Minnesota limestone strained as a once-tortured fanbase poured into the building and rose as one, working to will this magical month to last just another day — or even an hour, or even a minute.
But the magic ran out.
This was the long-awaited team that finally resurrected the faded fervor of postseason baseball in Minnesota, the one that finally wrested off the burdensome cloak of unwanted history, the one that found the spark to ignite the voices of a region and a state that once again remembered what it was like to scream themselves hoarse for a team that gave them hope.
In the end, this was a first step. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Even as a 3-2 loss to the Astros in Game 4 of the American League Division Series closed the chapter of this journey for the 2023 Twins, there was hope — and plenty of it — at Target Field until the very end. Even in defeat, it signaled that, perhaps, there’s more to come.
“The team is hungry in a way that I don’t think we probably even were before,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You get a taste of something like this, you show this to people, what this looks like and what it is. We’re not that far from playing in the World Series.”
There’s no banner for “snapped an 18-game playoff losing streak,” nor is there one for “won a playoff series for the first time in 21 years.” For all the magic there briefly was, that perhaps made the disappointment at the end all the more crushing.
But now, they know what that’s like. This city, this region, this fanbase know what that’s like — both sides of it. Finally.
They know they’ll be better off for it.
“We’re upset, we’re frustrated, but we’re excited to turn our sights to what we have in store for us,” Ryan Jeffers said.
“We’ll be back.”
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