The Twins have 16 games this month within the division and enter the phase coming off a 9-7 win over Tampa Bay, a game in which they led 7-0 before the Rays scored five runs during a hair-raising seventh inning.

The Twins lead the division by 11½ games and visit Cleveland and Detroit this week.

"It feels like it's time," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "You play so many games against your division, you play all these teams, what, 19 times? It's time to start playing some of them."

The Twins took three of the four games against the Rays, have won 10 of their past 12 games and 15 of 18. Mitch Garver was activated from the injured list and made an instant impact, going 1-for-3 with an RBI while guiding Jake Odorizzi to his eighth win — one more than he had all of last season.

Meanwhile, Nelson Cruz went 1-for-3 for Class A Fort Myers during a minor league rehabilitation stint and is expected to be activated from the injured list in time to face the Indians on Tuesday. Luis Arraez was sent to Class AAA Rochester after Sunday's game.

Not only will the 40-18 Twins arrive in Cleveland with baseball's best record — reaching 40 wins faster than any team in club history — they will be as healthy as they have been all season.

"It don't change who we are," said outfielder Byron Buxton. "We just have to go out there and play the ball that we have been playing. Keep being aggressive and keep having fun."

Buxton was 2-for-3 with a double, scored on a safety squeeze, and made one of the defensive plays of the year with a man on in the third when he raced to the center field wall to catch Yandy Diaz's drive and smacked into the wall with his back before uncorking a 97.1-miles-per-hour throw to first in time to double off Austin Meadows.

"You run out of superlatives for the guy because he can do so many things," Baldelli said.

Odorizzi, in his first game at Tropicana Field for the Twins after playing four full seasons for the Rays, fired six shutout innings and lowered his American League-leading ERA to 1.96. And he did it by firing 84 fastballs among his 108 pitches. He saw how Rays hitters struggled with the pitch and kept throwing it.

"I'm human," Odorizzi said. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't more excited for this game than maybe some of the other ones just because I spent so much time here and they were great to me while I was here."

Odorizzi's work of late has been superhuman. He has thrown 16⅓ scoreless innings over his past three outings and has a 0.65 ERA over his last seven. A season ago, Odorizzi was 7-10 in 32 starts.

Baseball's best offense handed him a 3-0 lead through four innings, then appeared to blow the game open with a four-run fifth to put the Twins ahead 7-0, the big blow a bases-clearing double by C.J. Cron.

The one blemish on Sunday was that righthander Matt Magill replaced Odorizzi (8-2) for the seventh inning and gave up five runs. Jonathan Schoop made it 9-5 with a two-run homer in the eighth before the Rays' Christian Arroyo hit a two-run shot off Blake Parker in the bottom of the inning.

Taylor Rogers finished for his fifth save. And the Twins are now off to Cleveland with a chance to make a commanding lead even more commanding.

"Normally at the end of the year, whoever plays best against their division is the one who is going to win it," Twins righthander Kyle Gibson said. "We can't get comfortable and we can't get complacent."

Minnesota Twins pitcher Jake Odorizzi throws against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, June 2, 2019, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Scott Audette) (The Minnesota Star Tribune)