When they hopped on the team bus at Tropicana Field for their Sept. 6 flight to Kansas City, the Tigers could all but hear baseball's ode to joy: champagne corks popping.

They couldn't say as much -- not with four weeks and 26 games remaining in the regular season.

And it was a good thing they didn't. The Tigers were about to lose five consecutive games. They were on the verge of seeing a seven-game lead slip to two games in the span of 13 days.

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It was a necessary fact for an otherwise relieved band of Tigers to remember Sunday after an immense 6-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins gave the Tigers a three-game lead with 13 games remaining, a nice breath of oxygen for a team that had all but suffocated within the Metrodome's claustrophobic walls...