After last night’s shellacking of Minnesota, the Tigers had champagne corks at the ready heading into the series finale this afternoon. A victory would have given them their first division championship since 1987.

But the celebration will have to wait.

In a wild game that featured the ejections of Jim Leyland, Gerald Laird and Jeremy Bonderman, the sloppy Twins relied on a big 8th inning to stave off elimination.

You have to hand it to Minnesota. They pulled off an impressive win today with their backs up against the wall despite an uncharacteristically-high four errors and six walks and amidst allegations of blatant sign stealing.

Regardless of how ugly today’s game might have been, it’s a loss for the Tigers and they instead will have to clinch the division at home against the Chicago White Sox in the final series of the 2009 season.

Time still favors Detroit. With the Magic Number stuck on 2, the Twins will have to take two of three from the visiting Kansas City Royals in order to stay in contention. A loss and a Tigers win would also spell the end of their season.

But taking the Twins out of the equation, the Tigers can wrap up the division themselves with two victories this weekend.

To do so, they will have two of their top three starters line up for the series: Jackson on Friday and Verlander on Sunday. If the Tigers can manage to take the first two games, clinching the division, Verlander will almost certainly be rested in preparation for a start in the ALDS against the Yankees.

The Twins will have to face Zack Greinke on Saturday and the Royals (amazingly) have had success this year in the Metrodome taking 4 of the 6 games played there. But Minnesota certainly has made a bold statement with their play over the past two weeks, demonstrating that they will not go quietly into the night.

The division is still the Tigers to win. But if there’s one lesson they’ve learned so far in the month of September, it’s that they can’t rely on the Twins to beat themselves.

If they want to play baseball next week, they’ll have to find a way to beat a Chicago White Sox team that has played them very well in recent history. And they’ll have to do it against Jake Peavy and/or John Danks in the process.

Magic Number: 2