"Matt Capps packed up his locker in Washington, D.C., Thursday night, boarded a plane to the Twin Cities early Friday and arrived at Target Field in the midst of a pennant race hours later. He found his locker, put on a new big-league uniform and, after eight innings of watching, emerged from the bullpen with 40,596 fans standing to welcome him.

The whole sequence took just a little more than 24 hours to play out — a speedy turnaround for a pitcher who has spent his career on teams long out of the race by this point of a season, pitching in sparsely attended home ballparks.

He responded to the welcome by earning his first career save as an American League pitcher. When he gave up a two-out single to Chone Figgins, the crowd groaned, but Capps lifted their spirits again four pitches later, finishing off the 5-3 Twins win with a swinging strikeout of Casey Kotchman.

"I don't think I've ever had an ovation quite like that," said Capps, who ran out to the same song he did in D.C. ("The Final Countdown"). "It gave me some goose bumps coming in. It feels good when people appreciate what you've done. To come here on Day One and get an ovation like that, I mean, what a feeling."

The last time Capps pitched in a ballgame that mattered this late in the summer?

"I played in the playoffs in the minors," he said. "Obviously, that's quite a bit different."

So is the Twins' bullpen, the team believes, with Capps in it. "