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CLEVELAND -- Less than a week after Jac Caglianone strained his left hamstring on July 26 , the Royals left town for a three-city, 10-day road trip through Toronto, Boston and Minneapolis. Caglianone was stuck in Kansas City, stuck on his couch every night watching the games after his rehab work was over for the day.

He was locked into every game, though. It was part of his homework.

“My fiancée is on a needlepoint kick right now, so she’d be doing that,” Caglianone explained. “So I’d be talking to myself, because she would just respond with, ‘Yeah, uh-huh.' And I was like, ‘You have no idea what I’m saying.’ But I used h

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