Matt Chapman was supposed to have Saturday’s game off. Instead, he had his best game of the season.
A rough year at the plate so far had the A’s third baseman with one of the league’s highest strikeout rates and lowest batting averages, but Chapman looked more like his old self in the A’s 8-3 win over the Texas Rangers in Arlington.
Chapman hit two home runs — his seventh career multi-home run game — and made one of the A’s best catch of the year, robbing Brock Holt of an opposite field bloop single with a diving, blind catch that sent Globe Life Park’s turf flying.
His first home run was a solo one that broke a 1-1 tie in the second inning. His second, another solo shot amid Oakland’s four-run seventh inning that broke open a 3-3 tie.
When he’s hitting, Chapman has typically been penciled into the second spot or middle of the order, but since the trade deadline he’s plummeted down the lineup as looks for ways to lighten a dismal 32% strikeout rate and .216 average that ranked fourth worst in the American League heading into Saturday’s games. A five-walk game in Cleveland that tied a single-game record set by Mark McGwire in 1997 amplified a solid stretch for Chapman in which he’s walked nine times with a .300 average over his last seven games.
Mitch Moreland has been losing playing time with second baseman Josh Harrison moving Jed Lowrie to a more regular designated hitter role. But Harrison’s recent injury opened up opportunities for Moreland, and he’s taken advantage.
Moreland’s opposite field home run to kick off the four-run seventh inning was his third home run and sixth hit in four games. Back-to-back RBI singles from Starling Marte and Matt Olson extended the A’s lead.
Olson hit his 30th home run of the year in the third inning, an opposite field laser beam. Olson ranks fourth in MLB on the home run leaderboard behind Angels’ Shohei Ohtani (39), Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (35) and San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. (31).
The Rangers made it interesting before the A’s big seventh inning against starter James Kaprielian.
Kaprielian didn’t walk a batter or strike out a batter in 5 1/3 innings. Nathaniel Lowe and Yonny Hernandez had his number, with Lowe scoring Hernandez in the first inning on a pair of hits.
Kaprielian settled in and escaped a few jams, including a two-on, no-out situation in the third inning helped along by a sliding catch of Adolis Garcia’s bunt attempt. Chapman single handedly got him out of a jam in the fifth inning, making the improbable catch to rob Holt with a runner on first. He turned a 6-4-3 double play later that inning.
Down 3-1, the Rangers struck again when Hernandez and Garcia hit back-to-back singles to start the sixth inning and Lowe hit an RBI single to put them within one. Kaprielian was replaced by left-handed pitcher Andrew Chafin, who gave up the game-tying sacrifice fly before finishing up the inning.
