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Less than seven weeks since they were lifeless, the Minnesota Twins left Ozzie Guillen speechless and now everyone in the American League is sleepless at the thought of October in Minneapolis.

Or do you think dealing with Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano in a five-game divisional playoff series sounds like a good time?

That is, if the Twins don't ruin your postseason dreams before they start.

Minnesota finished up a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox with Wednesday's 7-4 win, moving their torrid record to 34-8 since June 8, which includes victories in 12 of their last 13 games. With that, the Twins moved even with Chicago (and a half-game back of the New York Yankees) in the AL wild-card race.

And maybe most impressively, the Twins even shut up Guillen. Sort of.

"For the first time in my life, I'm speechless," the White Sox manager told reporters after the game.

You can't blame Ozzie. Who saw this coming? In early June, the Twins were 25-33 and destined, it seemed, to watch the White Sox and Detroit Tigers spend the summer battling for the Central Division title and/or a possible wild-card bid.

They were the Roger Clemens of major league teams – they took the first two months off.

Now Minnesota hosts Detroit – which still holds an 8½-game lead – this weekend in Minneapolis in what is shaping up as a most unlikely monster series.

The Twins will trot out both of their young, seemingly unstoppable aces – Liriano (12-2, 1.93 ERA) goes Friday, Santana (12-5, 3.04) pitches Sunday – to try to tame the Tigers, who are winners of 12 of their last 13 series. As an added bonus for Minnesota, it gets to avoid the Tigers' lights-out rookie Justin Verlander.

Anyone else circle this series with major playoff implications back in April?

"Even when we were playing as bad as we were the first month-and-a-half of the season, we still didn't give up on ourselves," outfielder Michael Cuddyer told reporters after the game Wednesday. "We still played with enthusiasm. And we still knew that if we played the type of baseball we're capable of, we could get back into things."

No one else believed, but they do now. If nothing else the Twins have thrown a wrench in what was shaping up as an orderly, if intense, playoff chase in the AL. Essentially Detroit, Chicago, New York and the Boston Red Sox were competing for three playoff spots – the AL West wouldn't factor in the wild-card chase and the Toronto Blue Jays were a possible X-factor but probably couldn't hold up.

Now Chicago is reeling, Detroit is wondering and fans in Boston or New York – at least the few who are aware of teams west of the Hudson – should be worried. Minnesota got its act going soon enough to avoid being last year's Cleveland Indians – the best team down the stretch who couldn't overcome a pathetically slow start and wound up out of the action.

One hundred games into the season, the Twins (59-41) have as good of a shot as anyone.

This may not be the most loaded roster in baseball, but with Santana and Liriano, you can practically bank on two victories every rotation. Get one more win somewhere else and you are playing .600 baseball.

That, of course, would be a decided cool down for the Twins, who are playing .810 baseball of late.

Minnesota is a home-grown club – almost everyone came out of the farm system – and it will be interesting to see if the Twins gamble and grab another bat (Alfonso Soriano is on the block, in case you hadn't heard) before Monday's non-waiver trade deadline.

Obviously, the Twins aren't going to stay this hot the rest of the way – at least we think – but Santana and Liriano (a combined 15-2 since the turnaround) have the look of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson as Arizona Diamondbacks circa 2001.

That is why everyone is leery of Minnesota, even Detroit. The Tigers still have a big cushion in the AL Central (although we'll see by Monday), but everyone else is in immediate sight for the Twins, who aren't looking to let up on the accelerator.

With Chicago stumbling, Ozzie silent and the White Sox's once 11-game advantage over the Twins gone, Minnesota just kept looking forward on Wednesday.

"We knew, eventually, if we were to keep winning," Cuddyer said, "we'd catch whoever was in front of us."

Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Follow him on Twitter. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Updated on Thursday, Jul 27, 2006 3:21 am, EDT

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