Adrian Beltre still hates it when teammates touch his head

There are few certainties in baseball: Three strikes and you’re out, don’t make the first out of an inning at third base and don’t touch Adrian Beltre’s head under any circumstances.

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The Texas Rangers third baseman hasn’t softened in his old age. On Monday, he proved as much after hitting a three-run homer in the first inning of the team’s 15-9 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

On the 2-2 pitch of his first at-bat, Beltre smacked an 86 mph slider out to left to give his team the early lead. As he approached the dugout his old nemesis, Elvis Andrus, struck.

Thankfully for Andrus, that smack by Beltre didn’t connect. It would be a shame if Andrus went on the disabled list because his teammate slapped him in the head.

If you look closely in the background, you’ll notice second baseman Rougned Odor also gets in on the act. He managed to escape from this incident without drawing Beltre’s ire, but he better hope Beltre doesn’t see any replay of what happened. We know Odor can fight a little, but we still lean Beltre in that bout.

In the end, it’s no surprise Beltre went after Andrus. The two have antagonized each other for years now. Andrus has accomplished that by trying to touch Beltre’s head constantly. Beltre has responded by fighting with him over infield territory and teased Andrus for prematurely celebrating a home run.

Beltre’s anger wound up being the perfect sign of things to come for the Rangers. After jumping out to an early 9-2 lead, the team gave up 13 unanswered runs to lose 15-9.

We’re going to guess the Rangers were none too pleased about that development, and we can’t really blame them. While we take no pleasure from their pain, we are pretty happy the best bromance in baseball is back.

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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik