When Sonic Youth formed in 1981, they probably didn’t imagine that, 28 years later, they would be playing a show at a club in Minneapolis while concert-goers alternated between listening intently (they still have it, we are happy to report) and checking small hand-held devices for information from [redacted]-knows where else. Back then, you went one place and focused on one thing. Now you go one place and focus on 20 things. Such is life. And, with a Twins game going on while Sonic Youth pushed its set past 11:30 p.m., we were among the distracted. By the time we got to the car, the Twins had taken a 3-2 lead on, we would find out later, a Michael Cuddyer triple. We were pleasantly surprised to hear friend Kraig Applecherry making the radio call instead of just serving (capably) in his studio role. As Joe Nathan slammed the door on a victory, KA marveled at the Twins, calling them a “resilient bunch.” This, of course, became fodder for a snarky text message we would send shortly after the game’s end. If he gets to needle us about our prose, we get to call him out for his homer-tinged radio lines. But, we suppose, winning last night after the previous two games (particularly the most recent loss to Oakland) was important.

More important, though, are two of the more resilient players among this “resilient bunch”: Cuddyer and Matt Guerrier. Cuddyer, with 16 HR, 51 RBI and a .275 average, is hardly having a great year. But it’s quietly become a very solid year — and a very necessary one after a lost season last year that had many people wondering if he was a one-year wonder who would ever come close to earning his three-year extension. Guerrier, meanwhile, has given up one earned run since the middle of May. That’s more than two months. And his numbers — 5-0, 2.18 ERA — would look great next to any name, let alone the one that became associated with the bullpen meltdown of last season. We temper enthusiasm, of course, by noting he had a 10-plus ERA in both August and September last season.

While sparing you the latest dispatches from Applecherry, we will ask this: what are some of the biggest surprises from this “resilient bunch” this season?

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