It was Wildfire Wednesday in Minnesota, as the smoke came rushing down from Canada, and affected the entire sports slate in the state.

The most obvious effects were felt by Minneapolis City SC, which postponed its game, and the Minnesota Aurora, which hurriedly shifted its game indoors, to the St. Croix Valley Recreation Center.

A special word for the Aurora and to the crew from Fox 9+. Not only did they manage to get their game played - albeit with no fans in attendance - but the match was still broadcast on TV, which gave disappointed fans the ability to watch the game, at least.

The Aurora rewarded those that tuned in, by hammering Green Bay 5-0, in a game in which Hannah Adler scored after 33 seconds. Cat Rapp scored five minutes later, then again in the 26th minute, and the rout was on. Minnesota’s now 7-0-0, has scored 34 goals, and allowed two.

Cheering for the Aurora is fun because, unlike most Minnesota sports teams, they pretty much always leave you happy at the end of the match.

For the Twins, the wildfire effects were less totally debilitating - they got their game in, before the air quality went from “it’s bad” to “nobody should go outside” - but they still did affect the game. The Twins’ fourth run scored when two Brewers failed to track a Joey Gallo pop fly into right field. Frankly, it looked a bit like a Metrodome game - every time a fly ball went up, there was a chance of losing it in the haze.

Carlos Correa was the hero again, lining a two-out triple hard off the right-field wall that scored two runs, in what was a bit of a carnival inning for Milwaukee right fielder Brian Anderson. First, he went back on Correa’s liner, but failed to corral it when it bounced hard off the wall in right, below the limestone facade but above the padding. The ball rolled halfway back to second base, allowing Donovan Solano - not a speedster - to score standing up from first base, and Correa to motor all the way to third.

The next batter was Trevor Larnach, who ripped a shot at Anderson - who went back and back, got concerned about the ball hitting the overhang, took his eye off the ball to look at the wall, and turned back in time for the ball to almost hit him in the head. RBI Double.

Gallo was next, and that was the pop fly that Anderson didn’t track; he hardly started in, and the ball ended up dropping 225 feet from the plate, behind the scrambling second baseman. RBI… single?

(Gallo got tagged out at second base because he failed to slide, so it was just some well-played baseball by everyone, on that play.)

Anyway, in another universe, the Twins get just one run from the inning; in the event, they got four.

Bailey Ober gave up back-to-back homers in the second inning, but was otherwise solid, striking out seven and coming back to labor his way through six innings. And the Twins bullpen, subject of so much opprobrium, was lights-out; Brock Stewart struck out the side, Jhoan Duran got two weak grounders back to the mound and a strikeout, and Griffin Jax shut the door.

As long as those three guys are the guys out of the bullpen, the Twins’ relief core looks just fine. Jax in particular has been transformed over the past month or so.

Somehow, the same team that scored three runs in three games against Tampa Bay has come back and won four out of five, and should have won the fifth game too. Suddenly everything seems fine with the Twins? Now they get to play the Tigers four times?

Down in Triple-A, in Louisville, Chris Williams was at it again for the Saints. A day after homering three times to lead his team to double digits, he launched two more homers, and St. Paul beat up on the Bats again, 11-3.

In two days, Williams has five homers and eleven runs batted in, which is a pretty good month in about 19 hours or so.

Jair Camargo also homered, as did Elliot Soto and Anthony Prato, and St. Paul has itself another three-game winning streak. St. Paul’s still six games behind Norfolk at the top of the International League, somehow, with just ten games to go until the end of the first half, so unless something miraculous happens, this hot streak won’t put the Saints in the playoffs.

They’ll get another crack at the Bats tonight, and the Twins might host the Tigers as scheduled (I really don’t know what MLB’s air quality-related policies are).

In Minnesota, where we’re trapped inside for five months in the winter, it sure is a slap in the face that the environment has found a way to trap us in our homes in the summer, too.