"Jon Rauch's half-season stint as the Twins' closer ended Thursday night when Minnesota dealt top catching prospect Wilson Ramos (along with Class A left-handed pitcher Joe Testa) to the Washington Nationals for all-star closer Matt Capps and $500,000 in cash considerations.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, reached at his home on the team's off day, said he talked to Rauch to let him know that, effective immediately, Capps is the Twins' closer.

"He said that he'll do whatever to win," Gardenhire said of Rauch's reaction. "He just wants to be on a winner."

With Capps, who was 3-3 with a 2.74 earned-run average, 26 saves and four blown saves this season for the last-place Nationals, Gardenhire and general manager Bill Smith said the Twins now have a better chance of winning in October.

Capps, 26, is making $3.5 million this season and will be due a raise in arbitration this offseason. He will be under the Twins' control through 2011 — a key element, Smith said, in the Twins' decision to make the deal.

Capps pitched 46 innings this season for the Nationals and gave up 51 hits, striking out 38 and walking nine. The right-hander spent the previous five seasons with Pittsburgh before joining Washington and undergoing a 2010 resurgence.

In 57 games for Pittsburgh last season Capps went 4-8 with a 5.80 ERA, allowing 73 hits and 10 home runs in 54 1/3 innings. He blew five saves while converting 27, results so troublesome the Pirates nontendered him. It was, however, the only real blemish on his career.

Gardenhire said the Twins have been interested in the 6-foot-2, 245-pound Georgia native for at least two seasons.

"I think we tried to get him for a couple years when he was with Pittsburgh. We talked to them about him," Gardenhire said. "We've always liked the guy. He's a gamer. Talking with people who are over there, this guy, he's a bulldog."

Ramos had a sluggish year at Class AAA Rochester, batting .241 with five homers and 30 runs batted in. Smith said those results didn't hurt the catcher's trade value.

"We just had to give him up to get an all-star closer," Smith said. "He's very highly thought of within the Twins organization, and he's very highly thought of outside the organization."

Capps is a fiery competitor who throws his fastball at 94 mph consistently, hitting the occasional 96 on the radar gun. He throws a straight fastball, a sinker, and a fastball that begins inside to left-handed hitters and breaks back over the plate at the last moment. It's a pitch that left David Ortiz tied up in a called strikeout to end the sixth inning in this year's All-Star Game. Capps also mixes in a hard slider with a sharp break.

Capps is an aggressive righty and more of a prototypical closer than Rauch. He also gives the Twins a backup plan for 2011 if Joe Nathan doesn't return to the mound the way he left it before Tommy John surgery. "