Stellar pitching (and huge pickoff) sends Twins to ALDS

MINNEAPOLIS — Entering this postseason, the prospect of a run deeper into October might have seemed unfathomable to a fanbase that knew only playoff heartbreak for the better part of two decades — but the Twins finally shook off the weight of history on Tuesday.

So, why not these Twins? Why not this group?

They’re the ones who broke the losing streak — and they’re finally the team with the pitchers who can finish this job.

For the first time since 2002, the Twins are moving on in the postseason, following their 2-0 win over the Blue Jays on Wednesday in front of a sellout crowd of 38,518 at Target Field. They secured a two-game sweep of the best-of-three Wild Card Series and set up a matchup in the Division Series against the AL West champion Astros starting Saturday at Minute Maid Park.

“It feels amazing, man. It feels amazing,” Carlos Correa told ESPN. “To get that first win in a long time yesterday was special, but to get this win right here and move on to the next round, it feels amazing. We’re gonna go to Houston. Obviously, they’ve got a great team over there, and we’re gonna play our best baseball, man. This feels really good.”

It’s simple, really. They got the playoff magic they needed from Correa and Royce Lewis — and plenty of it — but the backbone of it all is the pitching staff that allowed only one run across the two games, the very recipe that brought the Twins to this point, and the strength that so often paves the way for October success.

Only the 2020 Braves allowed fewer runs in a playoff series of two or more games, as they blanked the Reds in a two-game sweep of the NL Wild Card Series.

“This is a young, talented group that really wants it,” Correa told ESPN. “I tell everybody that this reminds me a lot of the 2015 Astros — when the young talent came up, matched up with the veterans that were there already, and then they started going off. I feel that this organization, this squad that we have right now, all the young players who are gonna be here for a long time — me, [Byron] Buxton, Royce are all gonna be here for a long time and we’re gonna build something special.”

And if there is such a thing as clutch pitching, the Twins have it in both Pablo López and Sonny Gray, who combined to allow one run across 10 2/3 innings as the most ironclad tandem atop the rotation the Twins have put up since this all began.

López and Gray entered the postseason as two of the top three qualified starters in MLB in limiting damage with men in scoring position. Gray pitched like that as part of his five shutout innings in Game 2, escaping three jams of multiple runners on base, including the pivotal moment in the fifth when he picked Vladimir Guerrero Jr. off second base to leave Bo Bichette with the bat in his hands.

And this isn’t one of those Twins bullpens of old that had both soft spots and soft-tossers; it’s a group of guys with bigtime stuff for bigtime moments — like when Caleb Thielbar induced a key 6-4-3 double play off the bat of George Springer to strand the bases loaded in the sixth.