by By Kelsie Smith ksmith@pioneerpress.com , St. Paul Pioneer Press

"Before the game started he guaranteed me a base hit up the middle and jam shot to left, so it worked out," said Punto, who did, in fact, roll a single through the middle and hit a jam shot the opposite way. "Guarantees are good. Any time you get a guarantee, that's pretty good."

Redmond's promise proved both prophetic and game-winning. Punto's eighth-inning single drove in the winning run in Minnesota's 4-3 victory Saturday afternoon at the Metrodome, but wait -- why did Redmond's bat hold just two singles? Why not a home run?

"His bats don't do that," Punto deadpanned.

They also, under no circumstances, Punto said, allow their user to pull the ball.

"Brian Buscher was using one of Red's bats too, and you see what happens when you try to pull, you shatter your bat," Punto said of Buscher's broken-bat groundout to short in the sixth. "They just don't do it. It's impossible for Redmond's bats to pull. They just don't."

For Punto, who will of course be using Redmond's bat again this afternoon, they didn't need to. The second baseman's lazy hit sailed just over shortstop Adam Everett's outstretched glove as pinch-runner Matt Tolbert motored home from second.

Manager Ron Gardenhire called Tolbert's read on the ball "super."

Punto labeled it "just a great read."

Tolbert, who easily slid past catcher Dusty Ryan's tag attempt, wasn't so sure.

"That was pretty close, right?" Tolbert inquired of his questioners. "I was like, man. After I slid I was like, 'That was really close.' "

So was the game. Punto's run-scoring single pulled the Twins (42-40) back two games above .500 and mercifully broke a 3-3 deadlock that threatened to push the game into extra innings so soon after Minnesota lost in 16 frames Friday.

In that loss Minnesota cobbled together two comebacks but failed to finish either time. On Saturday the Twins' luck improved. After leading 2-0 through six thanks to solo home runs from Michael Cuddyer (his 13th) and Justin Morneau (his 20th), the always-irksome Magglio Ordonez single-handedly erased Minnesota's lead.

Ordonez's 2009 has been so epically slump-ridden that the Tigers outfielder has been moved down in the batting order, benched completely and driven to chop off his famous long, curly locks.

What he really needed to turn his season around, of course, was a game or two against the Twins .

Ordonez entered Saturday's game with just three hits (none of them for extra bases) no walks and no runs batted in in his past 23 at-bats. He also has a career .326 batting average against Minnesota, and on Saturday that trumped his seasonlong downturn.

His three-run homer in the seventh erased Minnesota's 2-0 lead, was his 35th home run against the Twins (his most against any one opponent) and pushed his career batting average against starter Francisco Liriano to .400 (8 for 20). And when the ball fell into the seats in left center, Liriano's chin fell with it.

Until then, the left-hander had been so good, inspired even. After working out of a two-on, two-out jam in the second, Liriano set down 13 straight. Throughout his seven innings he stayed ahead in the count, and Gardenhire said that, strangely enough, that's probably what hurt him.

Liriano threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of his 27 batters, and in the seventh Detroit caught on. Marcus Thames and Ryan Raburn both singled on the first pitch they saw, and Ordonez's homer came on the first pitch as well.

But most important to Gardenhire was what happened next -- Liriano calmly and easily retired his next two hitters (one on a groundout, the other on a pickoff, caught stealing after a walk) to finish off the inning.

"He didn't overthrow the ball. He went right back at them and got the boys back in the dugout," Gardenhire said of the lefty, who has a 1.93 earned-run average in his last two starts. "That's the Liriano we need."

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