Sometimes an entire playoff series hinges on a single play, and one such play appears to be the ticket to an early playoff exit for the Minnesota Twins. Johan Santana and the Twins lost Game 1 to Oakland Tuesday afternoon, and were trailing 2-0 in Wednesday's Game 2 before Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau connected on back-to-back home runs leading off the sixth inning. With the score tied at two, the Metrodome crowd came alive and the momentum may have been shifting to the Twins. In the seventh, however, A's catcher Jason Kendall reached on a two-out single, bringing Mark Kotsay to the plate. The Oakland center fielder lofted a ball to right-center field that seemed certain to fall for a hit and put two runners on base, but Minnesota center fielder Torii Hunter made an ill-advised dive that came up substantially short. The ball rolled to the wall while Kendall and Kotsay circled the bases to put Oakland up 4-2. The A's went on to win 5-2, as their bullpen shut down the Twins the rest of the way. A failed dive in any circumstance risks a run scoring, a risk that seems far less sensible when your team needs only one out to end the inning. On top of that, the Twins have had a dependable bullpen all season, so protecting a 2-2 score was the thing to do. Hunter is a terrific defender, but his success defensively may have been the catalyst for what was a costly mental error. The Twins have executed poorly in a number of circumstances in the first two games of the ALDS, so there's plenty of blame to go around, but a high-risk play by Hunter has buried the Twins in a 2-0 hole as the two teams head to Oakland.