DENVER -- This is where the fun part begins.

At least publicly, the Twins maintained that they¡¯d been paying no mind to the chaos in the AL West and AL Wild Card races, because they¡¯d take their present group against anyone in the playoff field. With the dust settled, that opponent will be the Blue Jays -- and the Twins are up for that challenge.

This Twins team has the AL¡¯s best record in September, and the second-best since the All-Star break. The Twins have scored 20 percent more runs than anyone else in the Junior Circuit in the season¡¯s final month, which they capped with a 3-2, walk-off loss in 11 innings to the Rockies on Sunday, just their fifth loss in their last 16 games to finish out the regular season.

It¡¯s settled, then: The next time the Twins take the field, it will be at Target Field at 4:30 ET/3:30 CT on Tuesday as the AL¡¯s No. 3 seed, for a best-of-three Wild Card Series against Toronto, the No. 6 seed.

¡°I think this whole time we stayed pretty, who we play is who we play and there¡¯s nothing we can do to control that,¡± Ryan Jeffers said. ¡°Every team has their strengths. Every team has their weaknesses. I think we¡¯re a pretty dangerous team, so we¡¯re fine to play whoever we play.¡±

In many different ways, it¡¯s been an unbelievably deep group effort on both sides of the ball to get the Twins peaking at this point -- and case in point: There likely isn¡¯t room on the Wild Card Series roster for Bailey Ober, the pitcher who finished the season with a 3.43 ERA in 26 starts and dialed in for a gem at Coors Field.

¡°You can tell a story about every single guy on our roster, because they've all been productive, good Major League players for us this year,¡± Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. ¡°Everyone stepped out of line for a few weeks this year and took over games and won several games, almost in a row, for us. And everyone kind of took their turn doing that once or twice.

¡°It's not normal. It's been a very abnormal season, but in a good way.¡±

Here are a few more stats that illustrate how deep this lineup has been:

• The Twins had 12 players hit 10 or more homers this year, a new club record.
• The Twins had 12 players with 40 or more RBIs, tied for the most by any team in the expansion era (since 1961).?
• The Twins had 15 players record 100 or more total bases, by far the most by any team in the expansion era (the previous record had been 13).

They¡¯ve had seven different players account for their 10 walk-off wins this season. They¡¯ve done all this while overcoming seasons by both Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton that ranked among the worst of their careers. On any given day, they don¡¯t just feel good about where their lineup stands, one through nine; they can feel good about the guys on the bench, too.

¡°Really, one through nine, we¡¯ve got so many guys that have come up in different spots, in big spots for us throughout the year,¡± Jeffers said. ¡°So if you want to say one thing that¡¯s really helped us is that depth of, if one guy¡¯s not doing it today, another guy will pick him up.¡±

¡°It just screams, ¡®good team,¡¯ is what it screams,¡± Baldelli said.

And, for once, the Twins don¡¯t have the pitching questions that have been pervasive throughout this 18-game playoff losing streak that has defined the recent era of Minnesota postseason baseball. They have a clear-cut No. 1 and No. 2 starter to line up in the first two games of the playoffs and had their pick of three well-performing pitchers for a possible Game 3.

This isn¡¯t the same team that struggled to a 45-46 record in a bad division at the All-Star break; the personnel, depth and situational hitting have all gelled down the stretch, and they feel they can go toe-to-toe with anyone -- Toronto included.

¡°We definitely had our struggles at the beginning of the year,¡± Jeffers said. ¡°It definitely didn¡¯t come together how we wanted it to come together in the beginning. ¡­ But we really put it together down the stretch and we just stayed true to what we knew we had as a lineup, and we really started clicking.¡±