ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The bullpen gate kept swinging open, the relievers kept trotting to the mound and the deficit kept growing larger. And all the while, closer Eddie Guardado sat in the bullpen, unable to do anything to help the team he's been with since 1993.

"It got lonely out there," Guardado said. "All year long, we had pitched so great and then this. Unfortunately, it had to happen in the championship. But we don't have anything to feel ashamed about. We weren't even supposed to be in existence this year. We'll be back next year and we'll be better."

There is a good chance the Twins will be back in the postseason next October. Minnesota is loaded with good, young players and the Twins play in baseball's worst division. The only question is whether everyone comes back, which seems unlikely. Their $41 million payroll will have to rise next year, and with Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones and Doug Mientkiewicz all eligible for salary arbitration, someone may have to go.

So Bud Selig can relax. He won't have the awkward honor of handing the World Series trophy to the team he and Twins owner Carl Pohlad attempted to kill off last winter after all. At least not this year. Nearly a year after being handed a death sentence, the Twins' season finally ended Sunday afternoon, not with contraction but with a record-setting 13-5 loss to the Angels.

The Twins had captured the imagination and support of many by defying the owners to not only remain in existence but to thrive. A farm-built team with but a single free agent and the fourth-lowest payroll in the majors, the Twins easily won their division, then upset Oakland in the Division Series and returned Homer Hankies and sellout crowds to the Metrodome.

But they played poorly in the championship series, often resembling a contraction candidate instead of a possible World Series team. After winning Game 1 in the Metrodome, the Twins didn't hit, didn't field and, most glaring of all, didn't pitch in the late innings. Minnesota's bullpen was the strength of the team this season but after pitching more innings than any other pen in the league, it finally hit the wall, allowing 16 runs in its last five innings, including a postseason record 10 runs and 10 hits in the seventh inning Sunday.

After Minnesota took a 5-3 lead with an impressive rally in the top of the seventh, relievers Johan Santana, LaTroy Hawkins, J.C. Romero and Bob Wells all took the mound and not only melted down, but did so in historic fashion. Anaheim's first six batters hit safely and scored. The first seven reached base and 12 of the first 13 did so. Among the routine run-scoring singles, Twins relievers gave up runs on a home run, a bases-loaded walk, a bases-loaded wild pitch and a bases-loaded hit batter.

Offensive outage

The Twins' offense came to life in Game 5 with five runs, but they hit just. 231 and didn't homer in the series. Below is a game-by-game rundown of their offensive woes: Game 1: Scored two runs and were 5-for-27 (.185) with two doubles, six strikeouts and three walks. Game 2: Scored three runs and were 11-for-35 (.314) with two doubles, 10 strikeouts and two walks. Game 3: Scored one run and were 6-for-35 (.171) with one double, nine strikeouts and no walks. Game 4: Scored one run and were 6-for-32 (.188) with two doubles, 10 strikeouts and no walks. Game 5: Scored five runs and were 9-for-31 (.290) with two doubles, three strikeouts and two walks. Overall: 37-for-160 (.231) with nine doubles, 38 strikeouts and seven walks.

After Adam Kennedy hit his third homer of the game to give Anaheim a 6-5 lead, center fielder Torii Hunter punched the center-field fence in frustration.

"I was very upset," Hunter said. "I wanted to get to the World Series, too. I didn't want to go home. Instead, I guess I have to pack my bags and go back to my crib."

Anaheim tacked on seven more runs but it didn't matter much. The way the Twins hit this series, they weren't going to come back a second time.

The Twins became the first team to not hit a home run in the ALCS since the A's in 1990 and were outhomered 7-0. Twins left-handers hit .200. Kennedy drove in as many by himself Sunday (five) as the Twins scored in Games 2, 3 and 4 combined. Gardenhire stubbornly stuck with Jacque Jones as his leadoff hitter even though the left fielder had only two hits the entire series and hit only three groundballs.

Gardenhire defended his lineup by saying that he was loyal, that those were the players that got the Twins this far and those were the players he would stick with no matter what. Which was fitting. These Twins have been together since the minor leagues, riding the buses and overcoming everything from hitting slumps to threatened moves to contraction proposals.

"It hasn't hit me yet -- we just lost," Hunter said. "When we get on the plane and I think about how close we came to the World Series, that's when it will sink in."

There is a good chance the Twins will be back in the postseason next October. It might not have seemed that way this weekend, but Minnesota is loaded with good, young players and the Twins play in baseball's worst division. The only question is whether everyone comes back, which seems unlikely. Their $41 million payroll will have to rise next year, and with Hunter, Jones and Doug Mientkiewicz all eligible for salary arbitration, someone may have to go.

"That's the nature of the game," Mientkiewicz said. "I'll go home and work as hard as I can regardless of whose uniform I wear next year."

"I'm sure there will be changes this winter," Hunter said. "I hope they'll be changes for the good."

The Twins played poorly and lost the American League Championship Series. But given the past winter, the fact that they were playing in October made their season one of the most successful in baseball history. They should be as proud of that as the Angels are of reaching the World Series.

"It's hard for me to reflect back on the season because we didn't get it done today like we needed to," Gardenhire said. "But we thrilled the fans and gave the area something to get excited about again and we did what we set out to do in spring training. We played the game."

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.