Starting note: I wrote another World Cup article for the Star Tribune, detailing why the USA probably shouldn’t be the favorite this time - even though, if you go by history, they always are.

I’m not sure the Twins should be this resilient.

Fans have left them for dead over and over this season, and for good reason; their offense has been so disappointing that, every time they had a positive series or a good week, it was immediately undone by a series when they’d score four runs in three days or something like that.

Whether or not you believe it, professional athletes always talk about how winning is a habit, and teams have to learn how to win. Just from a narrative perspective, from the outside looking in, there’s always the temptation to overrate things like momentum and hot streaks, too. A team that wins two in a row is turning things around; a team that loses two in a row is nose-diving.

The Twins have now won five out of six, after beating Seattle 6-3 on Wednesday. Two days in a row, they’ve taken the lead, blown it, and then come back and won anyway.

Wednesday, Kenta Maeda was dealing. He allowed a leadoff single, then retired the next 15 batters, and in the meantime Edouard Julien murdered a baseball deep into the right-field stands, and the Twins led 3-0.

Then Maeda made a mistake that Tom Murphy put into the bleachers. Then Eugenio Suárez took Griffin Jax deep, his fourteenth homer in this series* (*note: estimated).

Narratively speaking, this should have led to a collapse from the Twins - zero more offense, more bullpen problems, and so on. Instead, Max Kepler singled, hustled to third on another single, then scored on a passed ball. Then Emilio Pagán - Emilio Pagán! - retired the Mariners in order, with a one-run lead. And Alex Kirilloff hit another one of his patented Joe Mauer-style one-row-into-the-left-field-bleacher home runs, Jhoan Duran threw a 104.8mph pitch, and the Twins won 6-3.

Kepler is hitting .304 over his last 15 games, with a .554 OPS slugging percentage and four home runs. If he keeps this up for the rest of the season, the Twins front office is going to spend the offseason on its own Winter Caravan - driving around the state, knocking on the doors of doubting fans, and punching them in the face.

On the flip side, Byron Buxton was out of the lineup for a second straight day, and things haven’t exactly been going sideways without him. Matt Wallner was in the lineup instead, and he went 0-for-4, and is 0-for-7 with three strikeouts since his recall. Perhaps it’s the pressure of having everyone who ever checked a Saints boxscore pulling for him.

If he just taps into the rest of the team’s resilience, he’ll probably be fine.

Speaking of the Saints, they got back into the win column on Wednesday as well, beating Omaha 9-4. Austin Martin performed the impressive feat of driving in three runs without getting a hit (he walked with the bases loaded twice, and hit a sacrifice fly), and Andrew Stevenson got three hits, which was more than the entire team got on Tuesday.

Louie Varland had his best start since his demotion, allowing two runs in six innings. The better the Saints rotation is, the better the Twins can feel in the second half, since it’s pretty much guaranteed that one of St. Paul’s starters is going to pitch some innings at Target Field.

Finally, in non-World Cup soccer news, Minnesota United made another summer signing, acquiring 21-year-old left back Ethan Bristow from Tranmere Rovers in England. Bristow played all 46 games for Tranmere this season, so he’s not exactly well-rested, but he’s got to be pretty much match-fit. More to the point, with draft pick Ryen Jiba going on the season-ending injury list (after missing the entire year), Bristow’s available to provide some cover for Kemar Lawrence at left back.

I’d be lying if I told you that I knew anything about Bristow beyond what I’ve noted above, but I will say this: the English fourth division has to be the only fourth division in the world where Minnesota could sign a player, and we wouldn’t think the club had lost its marbles. Replace the word “English” in the sentence “Minnesota United has signed a left back from the English fourth division,” and it’ll seem like it has to be fake news - partially because most of the fourth divisions in the world, including in the United States, are either non-professional or barely professional.

TODAY’S SLATE

TWINS at Seattle, 2:40pm
LYNX vs Los Angeles, 7pm
SAINTS at Omaha, 7:05pm

ON DECK

LOONS vs. Puebla, Sunday