‘He’ll never have any hair on his head again’: Matt Chapman shaves his head, hits a homer in Athletics win

CHICAGO — Matt Chapman’s hair was getting a long, a little too curly. The Oakland A’s are 115 games into the season — a 7-0 win over the Chicago White Sox on Friday afternoon moved the A’s to 65-50 — and opportunities to squeeze in a haircut appointment are scarce.

So a few hours before batting practice, Chapman had teammate Chad Pinder take a razor to his head. With the lost locks perhaps Chapman was looking to regain his on-field groove.

“I’m not gonna say it was fully for that,” Chapman laughed. “I will say it was kind of a win-win.”

The haircut appeared to do wonders for Chapman’s deep slump, a skid that had him 1-for-20 in August with seven strikeouts (albeit, that one hit was a game-winning home run off Milwaukee’s Josh Hader).

In his first at-bat of Friday’s game, White Sox starter Ross Detwiler got ahead 0-2.

“Been there probably too much lately,” Chapman said. Hairless Chapman didn’t strike out, though, but found a changeup he could more than handle, clocking it 114 mph over the left field fence to give the A’s a 1-0 lead.

“He’ll never have any hair on his head again, ever. All he had to do was shave it an hit a homer, so now we know” manager Bob Melvin said. “All it takes for a guy like him is a good game.”

Chapman went 2-for-5, his second hit a slow chopper he beat out. For full-hair’d Chapman it might’ve gone down as a swinging sac bunt of sorts (it advanced Marcus Semien into scoring position).

“Anything I’d been doing like that lately I’d been out by a step,” Chapman said. “So the baseball god are rewarding me for running hard.”

But will the head stay shaved?

“Until it grows out,” Chapman said. “It’s 1-for-1 today, so we’ll see.”

Chad Pinder against left-handers

Chapman chose his barber wisely, clearly.

Prior to the A’s week-long trip to Chicago, the A’s had faced just one left-hander over 18 games. Then the Cubs and White Sox laid down a south paw gauntlet, first with the Cubs throwing Jon Lester and Jose Quintana on the mound. The Sox countered with Detwiler.

This three-game stretch has given Pinder — who has a .323 OPS against lefties — some more consistent at bats. At Wrigley Field, Pinder had two hits, including a double.

The White Sox tossed lefty Jace Fry in the eighth inning, score 2-0, and Pinder hit his 11th home run of the year 403 feet into center field.

“It’s tough when we have a stretch of four five games and he doesn’t get to play,” Melvin said. “When he gets consistent at bats he’s a very consistent guy and he plays a good outfield, too.”

Pinder is known to make some web gem catches in the outfield, but Melvin also mentioned that Statcast records him as has one of the better first-step reactions on defense.

With injuries nagging and popping up consistently, Pinder’s consistency despite spotty playing time has been crucial to the A’s success.

Mike Fiers delivers…again

Tell me if you’ve heard this before: Fiers had another quality start, was throwing all his stuff for strikes and led his team to a win.

Now to put numbers to it: On Friday, Fiers dealt his 19th straight quality start, and hasn’t allowed more than three runs since an April 20 start against Toronto. Since April 26, Fiers’ ERA has only gotten lower; his 2.30 ERA over that span is the third-best in the bigs (behind Hyun-Jin Ryu and Max Scherzer).

Friday something was a little different, though. Fiers was pitching with a head cold. Yet, his stuff never looked better. His curveball was particularly filthy, garnering some key swings and misses (he struck out three batters with it) and soft contact. His fastball was locating, and elevating with a good changeup, too.

“One of those games and look up and see he has no walks and 8 strikeouts, that’s significant,” Melvin said.

He allowed three hits, two to budding White Sox star Tim Anderson.

Win No. 700

The win was Melvin’s 700th as the A’s manager. A milestone to which Melvin reacted:

“It feels like a short period of time and it feels like forever.”

The win also moved the A’s back into a tie with Tampa Bay for the second wild card spot, 3.5 games behind the Cleveland Indians.