Minnesota struggled to achieve a 2-1 advantage in the first three games, then blew the Jays out of their Skydome in the next two. Game One looked as though it would be an easy win for the Twins, who drove out starter Tom Candiotti with five runs on eight hits in the first 2²⁄₃ innings. But Toronto scored once in the fourth and chased Twins starter Jack Morris in the sixth with five straight singles and three more runs. Relievers Carl Willis and Rick Aguilera, though, held Toronto to just one more single to preserve the victory for Minnesota.

The Jays scored three times in Game Two before Minnesota put its first run across in the last of the third, and scored twice more in the seventh, taking their first - and, as it turned out, only - win behind the strong pitching of rookie Juan Guzman and relievers Tom Henke and Duane Ward.

Toronto again scored early in Game Three, with a pair of two-out runs (one of them Joe Carter's homer) in the first inning. Jays starter Jimmy Key held the Twins scoreless until they got to him for a run in the fifth, and another in the sixth which evened the score. Meanwhile, a string of Minnesota pitchers stifled the Blue Jays bats from the second inning on. In the tenth, pinch-hitter Mike Pagliarulo won it for the Twins with a home run to right.

For the third game in a row, Toronto scored first, with a run in the second inning of Game Four. But Minnesota's Kirby Puckett homered in the fourth to tie the score, and by the time Toronto scored again two innings later, the Twins had upped their run total to six.

Puckett's home run in the first inning of Game Five gave the Twins the first of two early runs, but the Jays came back with three runs in the third and two more in the fourth to drive out starter Kevin Tapani. They scored no more, however, as three Twins relievers held them to one single in the final five frames. In the sixth inning, meanwhile, Minnesota reawakened to tie the game with a trio of runs, and salted it - and the pennant- away in the eighth: with two out, Puckett doubled home the go-ahead run, and Kent Hrbek singled in two more for insurance.