Abe Almonte shines against Rajai Davis and the Oakland Athletics

Abraham Almonte had himself quite a ballgame against the Oakland Athletics yesterday. In the other dugout to see it first hand was Let's Go Former Tribe Always And Forever Rajai Davis. Perhaps the easiest LGFT in baseball to root for, Davis took some time to talk to Major League Bastian yesterday and you'll want to take some time to read it.

I still think Raj may return at some point this season.

Indians News

• Indians NRI Steve Delabar has a unique gift for shoe painting and Indians NRI Chris Colabello will wear a pair of them in the WBC. He's been doing it since high school, but I still don't know that I'd take him over Cookie in an art competition ^[1].

• Arizona's AAA affiliate, the Reno Aces, will be giving away a drone-related bobble head of a future ace their brilliant parent club traded away. Humiliating Trevor Bauer can be quite cathartic, but he has high odds of getting the last laugh in this particular instance.

• Matt and Merritt have a podcast and apparently there may be trees in CF!? Seems like a bad idea, since Naquin is terrible at catching baseballs near other people or objects ^[2].

Around baseball

• Joe Blanton signed with the Washington Nationals on a 1-year deal. $4M plus an additional 1 in incentives. They are deferring part of it. I have not heard anything to the contrary, so I think we can assume that they signed a non-Boras client for once!?!?

• Chaz Roe has quite the slider; comparable to Andrew Miller, perhaps!

• The real big news is that in addition to their long snapper, Cleveland has locked up their punte—just seeing if you're paying attention, LGT.

• Pete O'Brien keeps slugging spring homers for the Royals. Probably won't last. Hopefully won't last.

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[1] Citation currently unavailable

[2] We may have a World Series trophy if this were not the case