MINNEAPOLIS -- The triple was the easy part. After Ryan Doumit laced a pitch to the warning track in right-center, driving home two runs and delivering the Twins a thrilling 5-4 victory over Seattle in the bottom of the ninth, he had some baseball rituals to observe -- the uniform shredding, the Gatorade bucket and the shaving-cream pie. No wonder the Twins' cleanup-hitter-for-a-day looked a little weatherworn in the Twins' clubhouse on Saturday.
"You can't describe it," he said of the abuse, shaving cream still smeared on his neck. "It's awesome."
After a difficult and disappointing May, the Twins entered June with a jolt, staging a three-run rally in a light rain off of Seattle's sturdy closer, Tom Wilhelmsen. And if the comeback from a 4-2 ninth-inning deficit was as much Wilhelmsen's fault as the Twins' own doing -- he walked the first three hitters he faced, loading the bases for the middle of the Twins' order -- certainly the final blow was more evidence that that one of the Twins' most reliable run producers from last year is chugging into form.
"He scuffled a little bit early, trying to find his swing, getting a better feel for it, and I think you're seeing the guy we had last year," manager Ron Gardenhire said of Doumit, who ended the day batting .230, highest it's been since April 6, and with 27 RBIs, more than any Twin save Justin Morneau. Suddenly, his 2012 production -- a .275 average and 75 RBIs -- looks like a good benchmark for 2013, too. "He's just squaring the bat up a lot better. A lot of times when you're scuffling, you get a pitch and you foul it off. And right now his confidence is really high, and he's seeing the ball really good, and he's squaring it up."
He's been doing it for a week now; Saturday's win was the fifth time in six games Doumit has collected two RBIs, a streak so encouraging that when Morneau reported to work with the flu Saturday morning, Gardenhire simply appointed the backup catcher his new cleanup hitter.
And if you hit in the cleanup spot, Doumit said, you better act like a cleanup hitter.
"I was up there to do some damage," he said after his third career walk-off hit (and first since 2010) and seventh career triple. "I was looking for one spot and a pitch I could drive, and I got it."
Wilhelmsen had little choice. Seattle's closer converted his first 11 saves, but he's blown three of his last four now, all in the past 10 days, and walks have been the biggest reason. So after loading the bases, and giving up one run on Josh Willingham's sacrifice fly, Wilhelmsen didn't want to put Doumit aboard too.
When the count got to 2-2, Wilhelmsen tried a fastball, "the only strike I threw," he fumed. "It was right down the middle. . . . He knew it was coming."
The only question was whether Joe Mauer, who was on first base, could get to the plate before right fielder Endy Chavez could retrieve the ball. Eduardo Escobar tied the score ahead of him, but " 'Run Joe run' -- that's what we were saying in the dugout," Gardenhire said. Mauer slid home as the relay throw sailed high, and the Twins had improved to 3-1 on this five-game homestand.
"It's tough to score from first base in wet conditions like that. It's a testament to Joe," Doumit said. "A lot of things had to go right, and they did."