Sweeping four games from the Brewers gives a lot of Twins fans a little extra dose of giddy because it makes up for Minnesota fans having to look up at the Packers, the Badgers (in football and basketball) and the Bucks (despite their mediocrity) in the standings of those sports. But what does it really mean? That the Twins would go 120-42 if they played only the Brewers, Astros and Marlins?

Mostly, it means that the Twins did not shrivel up and blow away after the wretched baseball they played during their 10-game losing streak -- most of it coming against teams that are in first place in their divisions (Detroit, Boston and Atlanta.) That's not meant to be an excuse or a reason losing 10 in a row, but all teams have valleys during their seasons. It's a bit like life: You're never that good (and you're probably not that bad).

After a month with a rough schedule, the Twins have games in June against teams more their speed. The only teams they play next month with records currently above .500 are Detroit and Cleveland. So it'll take some undoing for the Twins to play poorly enough to restart the 100-loss discussion. And if they play really, really well...

With that unfinished thought in mind, here are a few quick observations:

*It's not good that the pitchers we're most excited about, currently, are Samuel Deduno and P.J. Walters. It means the 2013 rotation implants and Scott Diamond haven't given the Twins what they need, which is absolutely true with the exception of Kevin Correia. But here's my challenge to you: Go through the available free-agent pitchers from last winter and find three who would be giving the Twins a significant boost right now. You can use these rankings as a cheat sheet.

When you find three, of course, then you have to be confident in your ability that you would have chosen those three to the exclusion of all others who were available. Here are a half-dozen names that engendered varying degrees of disappointment when the Twins didn't pluck them off the market: Edwin Jackson (1-7, 6.11), Joe Blanton (1-8, 5.94), Joe Saunders (3-5, 5.57) Brandon McCarthy (2-4, 5.00) Brett Myers (0-3, 8.02), Erik Bedard (0-2, 5.32).

[Sarcastic interlude] It's tough all over, and I'm sure all the barstool, basement and blogging GMs would have honed right in on both Scott Feldman (5-4, 2.82) and Carlos Villanueva (1-3, 3.65) as 2013 Twins starters. Absolutely sure. Yeah, I know I would have. And I would have brought back Jason Marquis (6-2, 3.70), too. [End sarcastic interlude]

In no way does this excuse what was allowed to happen to the Twins pitching in recent years. The atrophy was avoidable. But fixing a pitching staff is a tough, tough business. A look through the lists I linked to shows that.

*I'm glad the Twins stuck with Aaron Hicks. Deciding when a player is ready for the majors is as much art as science. You can hurt one player by bringing him up too soon and you can hurt another with too much time in the minors. By season's end, I think most of those who were clamoring from the Twins to return Hicks to the minors will be happy he stayed. And, yes, it may have been the organization's good fortune that nobody in Rochester would have been a reasonable replacement in center field.

I'm anticipating the debate in a couple of years over who plays center field: Hicks or Byron Buxton. That'll be fun.

*I like Pedro Florimon. Sometimes the best answer is gambling on a player that another team (Baltimore, in this case) had no use for and give him a chance. Claiming Florimon on waivers, a month after Terry Ryan replaced Bill Smith, is turning out to be a pretty sweet replacement for J.J. Hardy (and others who shall not be named).

(Update: For some interesting data on Florimon and Hardy, including some numbers that surprised me, check the comments below.)