How did baseball's All-Star game affect the Twins' 1968 season?

In the 1968 All-Star game, Harmon Killebrew ruptured the hamstring in his right leg while stretching for a ball thrown to first base. He was out from July 10 to August 31, and would only play in 100 games that year, hitting just 17 home runs. The Twins finished in 7th place that year in the AL. “A lot of people thought I was through,” Killebrew would later tell the Los Angeles Times. But in 1969, Killebrew bounced back to win the American League Most Valuable Player award, hitting 49 home runs and driving in 140 runs.