Asdrubal turns in a wower

This is kind of a side story, especially because the Indians lost last night and Fausto Carmona can't seem to get any White Sox out to save his life, but did you see that freaking play Asdrubal Cabrera made last night? If you saw it, you know what play I'm talking about. Our old friend Omar Vizquel hit a line drive up the middle that Indians reliever Joe Smith managed to get a glove on, but only enough to deflect it a little. Cabrera, who was heading toward the middle from his shortstop position to try to make a play on the ball, had to change course and go back toward third. He got it with his bare hand, then looked toward Adam Everett covering second, and flipped it behind his back from about 15 feet away to start one of the most spectacular double plays I've ever seen.

It was the obvious choice for top play of the day on SportsCenter, right? Nope. They chose a Kevin Durant dunk, and put Cabrera's play No. 2. No disrespect to Durant; it was a fine dunk with a hand in his face. But come on.

If you want to watch Cabrera's play, click here. But you'll see it again. It might be the play of the year in the major leagues.

So how good are these Indians really?

The Indians have reached the season's quarter pole, and if you had them winning nearly two-thirds of their games in the first quarter of the season, you could have won a lot of money in Vegas. At 26-14, the Tribe has a five-game lead on Detroit in the AL Central, a 2 1/2-game lead on Tampa Bay for the American League's best record, and a one-game lead on Philadelphia for the best record in the bigs.

So what do the Internet experts think? There are three lists I check regularly. The most recent edition of ESPN's power rankings has the Tribe second, behind the Phillies. This despite Philadelphia's inferior record in the inferior league; this is presumably because of the Phillies' vaunted four-ace pitching rotation. Objectively, it's hard to think the Tribe can compete with a team that has Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels each starting every five days. But the results are what they are, and our boys have done better so far. ... I would also like to mention that the same poll had the Indians dead last in the first poll of the season. That's how surprising their fast start is.

There are two sites that use computer simulations to predict how the rest of the season will go. There's coolstandings, which predicts the Indians will finish 102-60, and gives them an 85.4% chance to make the playoffs, with a simulation that uses a fairly blunt instrument, team runs scored and team runs allowed so far. (The Indians excel in both categories, outscoring their opponents 207 to 145.) And then there's the Baseball Prospectus odds page, whose simulation is based on predictions about how individual players can be expected to perform the rest of the season. They've got the Indians finishing 83-79, with about a 32.5% chance of reaching the postseason. Amazing how two sophisticated computer simulations can have such wide differences.

Where does the truth lie? I suspect it's somewhere in between. I'd say a 90-win season is pretty realistic. That would only require the Indians to play slightly over .500 the rest of the way. At this point, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see them win about 95 games, which would almost certainly be good enough to keep them playing in October. I'm not going to lie, I'm excited.

A few random thoughts

* Sure, it was a little disappointing that the Indians lost the series at home against the Rays, after taking the first game. But the Rays are the hottest team in baseball right now, and the Tribe still has the best record in the American League. And Justin Masterson wasn't going to go undefeated all year.

* The Tribesmen were 20-8 after winning in Oakland on May 3. Since then, they're 3-5. Is this a temporary cold stretch, or what we can expect from this team the rest of the way? Only time will tell, but I'm optimistic they can turn it around.

* The just-as-surprising-as-the-Indians Kansas City Royals are in second place, at 20-17, after having just taken two of three from the Yankees in the Bronx. Partially fueling that series win was brand-new uber-prospect call-up Eric Hosmer, who homered in each of the two games the Royals won. By calling up Hosmer when they did, the Royals were signalling that they think they can contend this year, because they started the clock on his free agency. The Tigers are only half a game behind the Royals, and if the White Sox and Twins ever right themselves, this could be a very interesting race.

* In less interesting news, either Carlos Boozer or LeBron James will be playing in the NBA Finals this year. Had they both so chosen, they could have been leading the Cavaliers to a title right now. Instead, Boozer's Bulls and James' Heat will play for the Eastern Conference championship. Sigh.

* Jim Tressel just hired a lawyer to represent him before the NCAA Infractions Committee, and it's one heck of a lawyer for this situation: Gene Marsh is the former chairman of that very same committee. Before Tressel had hired him, Marsh said Tressel had a chance to get off relatively lightly because of his positive track record and the fact that the infraction wasn't as serious as some. I hope he's right, because that Tressel is one heck of a coach, and I'd hate to lose him.

Isn't baseball a funny game?

When Rays manager Joe Maddon summoned Kyle Farnsworth from the bullpen in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game last night with nobody out and the bases loaded, he probably figured it wasn't likely that Farnsworth would get out of the jam, but at least he would make the Indians earn it by getting the bat on the ball. After all, Farnsworth had yet to walk a batter all year. Surely he could put it in the strike zone with the game on the line.

Farnsworth got Orlando Cabrera to ground into a fielder's choice, putting him within a double play of sending the game to extras. And then he got ahead of Michael Brantley 0-2. Rays fans must have felt like things were going their way. But then he missed the zone four times, Brantley went to first, and Carlos Santana pranced down the third base line to end the game.

The old walk-off walk. You see it about 10 or 15 times a season around the majors. You'd think any major league pitcher worth his salt would be able to avoid walking a guy with the bases loaded to end the game, but apparently even a guy like Farnsworth who almost never walks anybody can lose the strike zone sometimes. On the same evening, in Miami, the Phillies' Roy Halladay -- arguably the best pitcher in the game -- lost in part because he walked Marlins pitcher Josh Johnson. It was the first time in Halladay's career that he'd walked a pitcher. Johnson would come around to score the first run of a 2-1 Florida victory. I guess no matter how good a pitcher's control usually is, he's bound to lose it once in a while. Throwing a baseball in that small area, while making it hard to hit, is not an easy task.

The win was the Indians' 14th in a row at Progressive Field, giving them their best home start in the team's 111-year history. At 23-11, the Tribe has baseball's best record. And I'm starting to think they really are this good.