"Tigers closer Jose Valverde was in a basesloaded jam in the ninth inning Wednesday. He blew away Trevor Plouffe and Joe Mauer with 96-miles-per-hour fastballs, but he still had Justin Morneau to deal with.

One of the M&M boys had to come through.

"That's how it's supposed to be," Morneau said. "It doesn't always work out the way it's supposed to, as we have seen this year go."

It was a return to the good ol' days of a couple years ago, as Morneau singled up the middle to drive in two runs and help lead the Twins to a 6-5 victory at Comerica Park.

Morneau's single drove in Rene Tosoni and Tsuyoshi Nishioka as the Twins took the three-game series 2-1. They last won a series July 14-17, when they won three of four games from Kansas City. Now they get the Yankees for a four-game series at Target Field that begins Thursday.

"The guys battled," said Twins righthander Carl Pavano, who gave up three runs over seven innings. "We came back twice. We showed some good tenacity there."

Pavano did all he could to keep the game close, a game that was filled of examples of why the Twins hadn't won a series in over a month before Wednesday.

Center fielder Ben Revere popped a bunt up for an out in the fifth and was caught stealing in the seventh when he broke for second on lefthander Duane Below's pickoff move. But Revere also walked and singled and made two stunning catches in center on former teammate Delmon Young. He turned his back to the infield and dashed about 50 feet to make an over-the-shoulder catch of Young's drive in the first, then made a diving grab of Young's liner toward right-center in the third."