Get ready for a roller coaster ride summer, Tribe fans. We saw a lot of good, some bad, and some ugly from the Indians in their opening series of 2013. It’s always good to win a series on the road and the Indians were playing with “house money” on Thursday, having locked up the series victory. They played like it, too. But, they head to Tampa/St. Pete at 2-1 and tied atop the AL Central Division with the Chicago White Sox and the Minnesota Twins.

I thought this opening series was huge for the Indians. The first month of the season is pretty tough. The Indians play four of the five AL East teams, the White Sox six times, and 16 of 27 games are on the road. Winning a series against a team that got a lot of preseason buzz is a nice confidence builder. To top it off, for two guys who need confidence, Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez, it was an especially productive series. Masterson outpitched R.A Dickey and Jimenez went pitch-for-pitch with Brandon Morrow, who had some of the nastiest stuff I have ever seen. And I don’t just mean from him. I mean ever. The top two starters in the Indians rotation combined to pitch 12 innings allowing two earned runs, six hits, six walks, and struck out 11.

A few people were skeptical of Michael Brantley being slotted fifth in the Tribe’s lineup. He silenced those critics quickly, reaching base in eight of his 13 plate appearances. Putting a contact hitter in the middle of guys with power could turn out to be a brilliant move by Terry Francona. Brantley scored three runs and drove in one.

With the exception of Cody Allen, the Indians bullpen was good in the series. Chris Perez made a belt high mistake to Jose Bautista for a blown save, but he never gave in and got the Indians to extra innings. The bullpen pitched 11 innings in the series, allowed three earned runs, struck out nine, and walked six. Arguably, the two most important pitchers in the bullpen, Joe Smith and Vinnie Pestano, pitched four clean innings with three holds and a save.

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Toronto’s bats and Cleveland’s “arms” conspired to prevent a Tribe sweep last night as the Blue Jays won the getaway game 10-8.  Newcomers Brett Myers and Chad Allen combined to pitch six innings, and the most constructive thing to say about those six innings is that they are now over.  In today’s B-List, Buff submits a shorter column because of a family engagement, but he still thanks Jason Kipnis and Lonnie Chisenhall for reading yesterday’s column and still complains about ducks.

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As the great Conan O'Brien would say. Whooaaaa....wait. I already used that introduction?

Well, okay, that issue aside, yesterday's introduction still applies. Don't go crazy now folks, the Indians are going to lose games just like everyone else. The Tigers got pounded 8-2. Let's keep it in perspective. At least the Indians were in this one.

The problem here is that I was stuck in class last night and didn't see anything past the third inning.

INDIANS - 8 | BLEU (hehe!) JAYS - 10

[BOXSCORE]

W: Steve Delabar (1-0)

L: Brett Myers (0-1)

S: Casey Janssen (1)

So after I made the comment that J.P. Arencibia is Canadian for "Crushes Brett Myers" I have nothing really to go off of other than a second home run for J.P later in the game off Myers.

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Not all who wander are lost, but Ubaldo Jimenez sure looked it in 2012.  As the Indians kick off 2013, so much depends on whether he and Justin Masterson can approximate good starters that it was encouraging to see each put up identical 6-inning 1-run lines, and in today’s B-List, Buff looks at Ubaldo’s wandering, Mike Brantley’s OPS, how Mark Reynolds behaves like a diode, and wonders aloud how you can have so many people in the bullpen without any of them being named “Raffy.”

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