BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : This Twins Killing Takes Only Five : AL Game 5: Minnesota continues its worst-to-first season by winning pennant with 8-5 victory over Toronto.

TORONTO —  Happily soggy, not at all minding that his white T-shirt had been drenched a sodden yellow by cannonades of champagne in the Minnesota clubhouse, Chili Davis reveled in the events that carried him and the Twins to the American League championship.

“Tell Dave Winfield he owes me an apology,” Davis said of his friend and former Angel teammate. “When we got into first place, he said that this team would be caught. Nobody’s caught us yet.”

Perhaps nobody will.

Their worst-to-first season continued as an unqualified success story Sunday, when the Twins rallied to wrest an 8-5 victory from the Toronto Blue Jays at the SkyDome and complete a five-game triumph over their AL East rivals.

The Twins became the first team in playoff history and sixth in postseason play to win the final three games of a series on the road, rolling past a team whose pitching staff was statistically superior, a team that had enough speed to run them into submission.

Then again, the Twins never allowed themselves to be caught or passed from July 11 on, not for a day and not by so much as a percentage point.

“Everybody was waiting for us to fold in the second half and we never did,” said first baseman Kent Hrbek, who shook off a two-for-20 slump to drive in the Twins’ final two runs Sunday with an eighth-inning single off David Wells. “People said the White Sox were going to make a run, or that the A’s were going to overtake us, but they never did. We just tried to keep them behind us.”

Putting yet another playoff failure behind them will prove difficult for the Blue Jays, who join the Angels as the only teams to have reached the playoffs three times without advancing to the World Series.

The Blue Jays rebounded from an early 2-0 Minnesota lead Sunday to go ahead, 5-2, on the strength of a three-run third inning and a two-run fourth. The 51,425 fans, many undoubtedly remembering the Blue Jays’ five-game loss to Oakland in 1989 and the collapse that wiped out the 3-1 lead they had built over Kansas City in 1985, took the bait Sunday only to see series MVP Kirby Puckett drive in the go-ahead run off losing pitcher Duane Ward. The hit came in the eighth inning and produced an ending the Blue Jays have seen so often.

“I can see what people say about it being a successful season just to be here,” said left-hander Jimmy Key, who started Game 3 but wasn’t involved in the decision. “But I look at it like we lost. In my mind, we had the team this year to go all the way. It was just a bad year. Going in, I felt like it was going to be an unsuccessful season unless we had a chance to win the World Series.”

Adding another desultory defeat to the Blue Jays’ playoff history rankled Manager Cito Gaston, although he was not on the bench to see the final innings. Gaston was ejected by home plate umpire Mike Reilly after the second inning for disputing a third strike called against Candy Maldonado, but Gaston still told coach Gene Tenace which players to employ. It didn’t help.

“I’ve been here 10 years now, and we always seem to come up with someone getting hurt,” said Gaston, who had to compensate for bullpen closer Tom Henke’s shoulder problems during the season and playoffs and the sprained ankle suffered by right fielder Joe Carter in Game 3 of this series. “Once, I would like to do it with everybody healthy down the stretch.”

The Blue Jays might have stretched the series beyond Sunday had they protected the 5-2 lead they took after four innings against Kevin Tapani.

Puckett got the Twins off to a fast start with a two-out homer in the first inning, and Pat Borders’ inability to corral Tom Candiotti’s knuckleball led to two passed balls and a 2-0 Minnesota lead in the second. But the Blue Jays came back for three in the third inning on an RBI single by Roberto Alomar, Joe Carter’s RBI double and a ground out by John Olerud. A two-run single in the fourth inning by Alomar spelled the end for Tapani.

Singles by Shane Mack and Mike Pagliarulo put runners on first and third with none out in the sixth inning and brought Toronto pitching coach Galen Cisco to the mound to usher Candiotti out and bring Mike Timlin in. Timlin got Greg Gagne to pop up to Borders behind the plate, and Dan Gladden followed with a bouncer to third base. Kelly Gruber’s throw was in time to get Mack, but Borders wasn’t positioned to block the plate and Mack slid in safely.

Rookie second baseman Chuck Knoblauch then sent Pagliarulo and Gladden home when he ripped a sinker into the right-field corner for a double.

The Blue Jays could see the end coming in the eighth inning after Gladden produced a two-out single and stole second. Knoblauch walked, bringing Puckett up to face Ward, who was in his third inning. “He had struck me out the time before (in the sixth inning), and I told myself I wasn’t going to get myself out again,” said Puckett, who hit .429 in the series with two homers and six RBIs.

Puckett’s single gave the Twins a 6-5 lead, which Hrbek soon padded with an 0-and-2 single to left field.

It was difficult to restrain their glee until it was over. “When we were up by three runs and still had three outs to go, I was wondering how it would feel,” Pagliarulo said. “It’s unbelievable. I wish I could explain the adrenaline and seeing everybody’s face, the relief on their face.”

Champagne streamed down their faces as they celebrated the club’s third AL pennant. If the bubbles stung their eyes and soaked their skins, they didn’t care.

“What does your shirt say, Chill?” Gladden said, pointing to the imprint “American League Champion Minnesota Twins.”

Davis played along. “It says Twins. T-W-I-N-S. I’m not talking Siamese Twins, I’m talking Minnesota Twins,” said Davis, who signed with Minnesota as a new-look free agent last winter.

Davis paid his respects to Toronto center fielder Devon White--his teammate on the Angels last season--and to Alomar and Carter, but the moment belonged to Davis and the Twins.

“We’re going to the prom,” Davis shouted, who has to wait until Saturday for his date. “Tell those Angels thank you for letting me go. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

* TORONTO TROUBLE: Some Blue Jay players were second-guessing the pitching rotation used by Cito Gaston. C12