As previously alluded to... from my perspective, raising a white flag and coasting to the end is poor sportsmanship. You work as hard as you can through the last out or the clock hits 0:00 or you cross the finish line. Exclamation point!
In this case, I say the Twins and LaRussa were the poor sports here.
When my daughter was in 7th grade I coached her school's 7th & 8th grade basketball team. The game against our cross-town rival was in their gym. I had a really good 7th grader point guard* on my team and the other team struggled to stop her. We opened a double-digit lead. In the 4th quarter, I began to get heckled by the opposing team's parents for keeping her in the game. After the game I had various parents passively-aggressively express their displeasure directly to me. Opposing parents complained to their school admins about it. A couple parents of my own school were noticeably displeased/embarrassed that I kept my star point guard in the whole game.
Knowing I was probably going to hear about it from the AD, I preemptively met with him to solidify my perspective on the situation. I expressed (nearly verbatim) the above sportsmanship perspective. I also told him that driving home that "never stop" mentality on girls that age will serve them well later in life. I also reminded him that I only had seven girls total on my roster and the other six were not adequate point guards; had I tinkered with what was proven to work, I would've run the risk of shaking the focus and confidence of my own players and potentially open the door for a comeback from the other team.
Following that preemptive conversation, the AD was exponentially more displeased that he was going to have to deal with disgruntled people who subscribed to that "unwritten rule" than with what I had done.
[* she was named First Team All-Conference Point Guard as a high school senior]