The Diamondbacks have a deal with free-agent outfielder Jason Kubel, a source confirmed to CBSSports.com Monday morning.

The deal is complete, pending a physical. Kubel will get $15 million for two years, with an option for a third year. The Diamondbacks plan for Kubel to be their everyday left fielder, leaving Gerardo Parra to be a fourth outfielder (or to trade for help elsewhere).

Kubel hit .273 with a .332 on-base percentage and 12 home runs in 99 games for the Twins in 2011.

The Kubel deal was first reported on Twitter by Tom Krasovic (@tomkrasovic).

The Twins said Wednesday they'd be putting one player on the disabled list on Thursday.

Jim Thome or Jason Kubel, they said.

Thursday, the Twins made their announcement. Thome is on the DL. Kubel is, too.

It's been that kind of year in Minnesota.

As Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse pointed out, there have already been 15 players who have seen time with both the Twins and the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings. It's still 15, because Ben Revere and Luke Hughes (called up to replace Thome and Kubel) were with the Twins earlier this season, but would go to 16 if the Twins call up Brian Dinkelman (as has been reported) on Friday.

Kubel has a strained left foot. Thome, who is seven home runs shy of 500 for his career, has a strained left quadriceps.

The Twins are 20 games under .500 (17-37), for the first time since the end of the 2000 season. The last time they were this bad this early in a season was 1995, when they started 17-37, on the way to 88 losses and last place.

Now, the Twins are without their opening day catcher (Joe Mauer), second baseman (Tsuyoshi Nishioka) and designated hitter (Kubel), as well as their closer (Joe Nathan), their second starter (Francisco Liriano), their biggest bat off the bench (Thome) and another reliever/spot starter (Kevin Slowey). Mauer and Nishioka played in an extended spring training game Thursday.

Opening day left fielder Delmon Young also spent time on the disabled list, and while first baseman Justin Morneau, he has been slowed by health problems.

NEW YORK -- The Twins, a rival scout said Sunday morning, are "a championship club."

And now maybe they are.

Did they prove that with one shocking swing of Jason Kubel's bat? Of course not.

But as long as the Twins kept losing every single game they played in New York, how could we take them seriously as a team that could walk into Yankee Stadium in October and win?

That, after all, is what the Twins need to be.

With a payroll approaching $100 million, with maybe the best player in baseball signed to a long-term contract, with an improved and deeper roster, this needs to be a team that can win a championship.

And not just a team that can win the American League Central.

This needs to be a team we can take seriously in October. And not a team we quickly dismiss because . . . well, because they hadn't won a game in New York since Johan Santana was pitching for them (and didn't beat the Yankees once last year, in New York or at home).

One win in May, even one win as dramatic as Sunday's, doesn't change all that. But one win in May, especially one win as dramatic as Sunday's, on a Kubel grand slam off Mariano Rivera, changes the story.

"It's not showing that we can beat them," manager Ron Gardenhire said, after the 6-3 Twins win. "It's just getting rid of that [talk of never winning in New York]. That stuff can build."

So even though the Twins lost yet another series in the Bronx (they last won one in May 2001), the story today is about their improbable win Sunday.

It's about how Rivera walked in a run for just the fourth time in his career (and the first time in five years), about how Rivera allowed just the second grand slam he's given up in 15-plus years as a late-inning reliever (and the first in eight years).

It's about how Rivera finally suffered another blown save at home, his first since 2007 after a record-tying string of 51 that he converted.

It's about the Twins as winners.

Beating Rivera doesn't make you a champion. Bill Selby's slam gave the 2002 Indians one of their 74 wins that year, and Charlie Manuel had been fired a few days earlier. The back-to-back home runs that Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria hit off Rivera last May were long-forgotten by October, when the Rays were at home and the Yankees were winning it all.

The Twins, as Gardenhire pointed out, have a ways to go before they can guarantee another playoff series in New York (as do the Yankees).

"There's too many great teams in the league to focus on one team," Gardenhire said. "The Tigers, the White Sox -- our division is hard enough."

That's fine, but we already believed that the Twins were capable of winning the Central. They already believed that, too.

This team is talented enough (and has a high enough payroll) to shoot higher than that.

This could be a championship team.

But as long as they kept losing every game to the Yankees, it was hard to seriously believe that.

*****

Some Rivera grand-slam trivia:

-- Rivera gave up two slams in 1995, one when he was a starter (to Geronimo Berroa) and the other when he was pitching in long relief (to Bobby Bonilla). He became a full-time reliever the following year, and the only slam he'd allowed since then was Selby's walkoff, in 2002.

-- Jim Thome, whose bases-loaded walk set up Kubel's slam, was also on base for Selby's slam. Rivera intentionally walked Thome, then struck out Travis Fryman before facing Selby.

-- Gardenhire said that Kubel is the type of hitter who could have a chance against Rivera, because of a "short, quick swing" that could allow him to get to Rivera's cutter. Kubel was 2 for 5 against Rivera in their previous regular-season meetings, but with no extra-base hits. He 2 for 8, including playoff meetings, with four strikeouts.