MINNEAPOLIS — When a water pipe burst and the call came at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday that Erick Fedde, like all of his teammates on the same flooded floor of their hotel, had to pack their things and leave their rooms, the right-hander had two bags to carry and 29 stories to walk down.

He was alert enough not to grab both.

It was, after all, his day to pitch.

Fedde carried only one bag all the way down in his left hand, protecting his right arm for the start a few hours away. Luken Baker scooped up the other bag and lugged it down to the lobby, where the St. Louis Cardinals sat awaiting their next move. Some would relocate to another hotel. Two, Lars Nootbaar and Pedro Pages, would share a couch in Nolan Arenado’s suite.

Almost all would play a role in their team's unlikeliest win yet.

“Those are the kind of wins that matter,” Fedde said. “Especially where we’re at.”

On little sleep and dealing again with even less offense, the Cardinals capitalized on an error in the ninth inning to reverse a game on the Minnesota Twins and win 3-2 at Target Field. Closer Ryan Helsley cinched the win for his 40th save of the season and the Cardinals' first series win against the Twins since 2001, nine years before Target Field opened.

What could have been a game-ending, series-clinching double play for Minnesota instead became a ball tossed wide of the base and sent bounding across left field. The throwing error by second baseman Edouard Julian shook the Cardinals offense that had been slumbering for two days, limited Saturday and Sunday at that point to just a solo homer from their No. 9 hitter.

Nootbaar changed that with his two-run, two-out single in the ninth off Twins closer Jhoan Duran. Ten hours after he decided he could not get sleep on Arenado’s sofa, Nootbaar produced twice as many runs with one swing as the Cardinals had in the previous 48 hours.

“I love this one,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “We snatched it from them.”

The stunner gave the Cardinals (65-65) their fourth win in six games and their second consecutive series against a playoff-caliber team. With wins against first-place Milwaukee and contending Minnesota, the Cardinals now go head to head with a team directly ahead of them in the race for the National League wild-card berths. Mike Shildt’s San Diego Padres visit St. Louis for a four-game series that allows the Cardinals to cut directly into their deficit.

The wake-up call has arrived.

Hours after stirring from their hotel rooms, the Cardinals answered.

“Total team effort,” Nootbaar said.

Before the offense perked up, the players had to — thanks to a coffee run.

As the newly triangulated buses brought players to Target Field from different spots, veteran pitcher and former Twin Kyle Gibson took coffee orders and walked to a shop nearest the ballpark.

He toted back 12 coffees for teammates — all balanced in a pyramid of three carriers.

At least one possibly had four shots of espresso, though the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was unable to independently confirm that allegation.

The initial jolt of the game belonged to the Twins as leadoff hitter Willi Castro gave them a lead with the first swing against Fedde. Castro took the second cutter from the Cardinals right-hander deep into the right field seats for his second career leadoff homer.

“It gives you a choice,” Fedde said. “Is it going to be that kind of day? Or are you going to lock it in? I was lucky enough to be able to do that.”

Facing the Twins for a third time this season, Fedde found the feel for his change-up, and that gave him an edge against a lineup that was eagerly seeking that cutter. Fedde retired 10 of the next 12 Twins he faced after the leadoff homer.

In the fourth, Fedde invited trouble with a hit batter and two walks. Manny Margot, a last-minute addition to the Twins lineup, came up with the bases loaded before Fedde made the pivotal pitch of his outing.

Margot swung over a 93 mph sinker to end the threat.

Good thing that right arm was at least rested.

“I feel like personally I had success pitching him backward — could try to spin him early and put him away with heat,” Fedde explained. “I was trying to go down and away with that sinker. It shot up. He bit at it. Love that.”

Twins starter Zebby Matthews blistered the Cardinals throughout the game with a fastball that Marmol called “impressive.” He struck out six different Cardinals by the end of the fourth inning, and he was one out away from facing three over the minimum through five. Rookie outfielder Victor Scott II ended that chance. He drove a hanging slider into the seats for his second homer of the season and a tie game, 1-1. That was the Cardinals' lone run for 18 innings stretching back to Friday night.

In the fifth, shortly after Scott tied the game with his solo homer, the defense helped Fedde push toward a quality start. Alec Burleson, who was also displaced at the hotel, reached over a railing at the Twins dugout to make a key catch before spinning into the dugout while holding onto the out.

The game became a staring contest waiting for the first team to blink.

The Cardinals did that in the eighth with a matchup they saw coming. JoJo Romero had the inning, and somewhere in it, the Twins would go to right-handed batter Royce Lewis, a rising north star for Minnesota.

“It’s good on good,” Marmol said. “Let’s see what happens."

After a leadoff walk, Lewis strolled up. He tagged Romero with a double into the gap that broke the tie for a 2-1 Twins lead.

That brought sizzling closer Duran into his second game of the series.

Duran got two strikeouts from the first four Cardinals he faced in the ninth, but in between them, the inning started to unravel. Jose Fermin entered as a pinch runner for Arenado, and that mattered because Fermin’s jump and speed put pressure on the throw Julien rushed. Brendan Donovan, who hit the grounder, used the error to reach second. He stood there with Fermin, the potential tying run, at third with Nootbaar coming to the plate.

On Saturday, in a 6-0 loss and hours before the rooms started to flood, Nootbaar faced Duran and saw all three of the closer’s pitches. He felt such recent looks at the pitch helped him go into that at-bat with better feel.

“If he threw the heater, I felt I had a chance at it,” Nootbaar said. “With (confidence), you see the ball better, you see it earlier and you’re more willing to take chances at the plate because you feel like you can do something.”

What he did was thread a two-run single to flip the game.

Still awake on Arenado’s couch at around 5:30 a.m., Nootbaar got up without disturbing Pages and went back to his original room, walking through the slurpy carpet just to reach his bed for some sleep. Hours later, in the ninth inning, all three teammates sharing Arenado’s suite had a hit.

Arenado’s single got it started, Pages’ single almost extended it and Nootbaar’s single won it.

Not bad for a night on a sofa.

“It wasn’t comfortable,” Pages said. “We had a bar in our back. But it is what it is. We got what sleep we could in — and we got the win. Might happen next road trip, too. We’ll see.”

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