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.