For Minnesota, now it’s time to wait

? There would be no clinching on Sunday for the Minnesota Twins, but that didn’t mean there was no partying.

Shortly after the White Sox finished off Cleveland in Chicago, guaranteeing they would have a chance to tie Minnesota by winning a makeup game today, Delmon Young drove a two-run single into center field. The Twins had a 4-0 lead in the seventh inning, and a crowd of 42,942 was rocking.

The Twins finished off a 6-0 victory over Kansas City that was marked more by Royals mistakes than the dramatic elements that marked baseball’s wild weekend.

Ron Gardenhire’s team gets at least 24 hours off, watching the Tigers-White Sox makeup game to see if it travels to Chicago for a Tuesday playoff for the American League Central title or goes directly to Tampa Bay. The Central champ plays the Rays there in the Division Series beginning Thursday.

“It seems like we’ve spent a lot of this season watching the White Sox,” said young right-hander Nick Blackburn, who would be the Twins’ starting pitcher on Tuesday. “This won’t be unusual. It’s been a part of our season.”

Baseball’s unusually tight finish featured four games with playoff implications on Sunday, all in the home parks of the teams playing for high stakes. Milwaukee was the only place where home fans got both a victory and a major adrenaline rush, as Ryan Braun’s eighth-inning homer off the Cubs’ Bob Howry sent the Brewers into the playoffs for the first time since 1982.

The Florida Marlins’ 4-2 win over the Mets – on eighth-inning home runs by Wes Helms and Dan Uggla to break a 2-2 tie – meant CC Sabathia & Co. won’t have to travel to Shea Stadium for a Monday night playoff. Instead they head to Philadelphia for a first-round series against the Phillies.

By trading for Sabathia, a rent-an-ace expected to leave via free agency at season’s end, the Brewers showed their sincerity about reaching the playoffs for the first time in 26 years. Now the challenge is to see if they can get past Philadephia and play for a pennant, possibly against the Cubs. Wouldn’t that be something?

The Cubs will host Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers in a first-round series that opens on Wednesday.

With their unusually routine 5-1 win over Cleveland, the White Sox earn the chance to make a delayed entrance into the playoff field. If they beat Detroit today, they’ll be 88-74 and tied with Minnesota, forcing a Tuesday playoff.

That game would be played at U.S. Cellular Field, the result of a not-so-trivial coin flip.

It shouldn’t have come to this for the White Sox, who have led the Central for 144 days this season. But that’s the history of their rivalry with the Twins in recent years.

The Twins are trying to win their fifth Central title since 2002.

The Sox have led the Central for 464 days over the last seven seasons, 20 days more than Minnesota, but have only one division title to show for it.

The Twins historically have come through when it has mattered the most. The Sox, meanwhile, have an image as being a team that talks a good game and was fortunate to catch lightning in a bottle in 2005.

“We did our part today, but the White Sox did their part,” Gardenhire said. “So now they get to play another game and see if they can catch us.