The Indians guaranteed a series win by beating the A’s 4-3 last night in a game with wild swings and one decidedly incorrect call, and Buff finds himself reminded of Indians teams of yesteryear.  Starter Justin Masterson broke out the Inning of Crap™, closer Chris Perez channeled his inner Bob Wickman, and the middle infielders did not get a hit.  In today’s B-List, Buff addresses The Call, the save, and the Crap™, while wondering: exactly how hard should baseball work to Get It Right?

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You’ve been studying the franchise your whole life. You structure your schedule around their daily rhythms, nine months out of every year.

Typical Cleveland Indians trivia questions? They add little to the catalog of knowledge you have cultivated. The top highlights of the team’s past are fine for the national media to discover every couple years (as in: ...the Indians won 111 games in 1954 and were swept in four games and Willie Mays made a nice catch…). But you have long moved past such ‘low hanging fruit.’

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The Cleveland Indians are just a little more than one month into the 2013 season and at times it feels as if we've seen this movie before.

But is this the third film in a trilogy of disappointment or the film that reboots a once successful franchise?

The Tribe has played entertaining baseball through the first month of the season, and while it feels like they are a better team this year, a quick check of the standings tells a slightly different story. The Indians were 16-14 heading into Wednesday night's game against Oakland and riding a streak that has seen them win eigth out of nine. They are currently in third place, 3 games out of first.

At this time last year the Indians were in first place with a 17-12 record and 2 games up on Detroit; in 2011 they were 22-11 and in first place by 4.5 games.

And we all know how those seasons came to an end.

So what is going to keep the bottom from falling out on the Tribe for the third consecutive year?

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The Indians got back to their winning ways, beating the worst pitcher on the best team they’ve faced in a while, and today’s B-List looks at the length of Ubaldo Jimenez’ leash, the resurgence of Asdrubal Cabrera, the intercontinental ballistic capabilities of Mark Reynolds, and a contrast between relief pitchers Nick Hagadone and Chris Resop.  He also calls Jason Giambi “old,” which is a bit of pot-and-kettling by the columnist.  At least Joe Smiff is back from whatever strike zone insanity afflicted him.

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