BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : No Cuts Until Percival Gets Nicked

If Angel reliever Troy Percival looks like Howard Stern in late September, it will have been an incredible season for the flame-throwing right-hander. Percival, who shaved his head in spring training, has vowed not to get a haircut until he gives up a run.

Forever? “If need be,” said Percival, who pitched a scoreless ninth Saturday and has not given up a run since last Sept. 19 or a hit since April 20. “If it gets a little too ugly up top I may trim it, but I’m going to let it go for a while.”

Fellow reliever Mike James hopes Percival’s shutout spree continues. “I want to see what he looks like,” James said. “I can just hear the P.A. announcer . . . ‘Now coming out of the bullpen, Alex Van Halen.’ ”

Percival, whose hair has grown back to about normal length, said the potential mangy look is yet another baseball superstition.

“You don’t give up any runs, you don’t want to change anything,” said Percival, who has 11 saves. “I’ll run with these shoes until they have holes in them, wear the same socks . . . it’s nothing new.”

*

Knuckleballer Dennis Springer, bombed for five runs in one inning in Friday’s 13-8 victory over Cleveland, found some solace in a conversation with Manager Marcel Lachemann Saturday.

“He said to me, ‘I’m not that bad,’ and there’s some credence to that,” Lachemann said. “He didn’t look very relaxed. He tried to force it, and the last pitch you want to force is the knuckleball.”

Springer, who replaced the injured Mark Langston in the rotation, admitted he was too keyed up to face the defending American League-champion Indians.

“You’re coming in against Cleveland, it gets your blood flowing too much,” he said. “I’ve got to sit back, relax and let things happen, and I didn’t do that [Friday] night. But one bad outing doesn’t make a season.”

*

Springer may get a second chance, but it might not be for another week and a half. With two off days next week, Lachemann will go with a four-man rotation on the next trip, with Chuck Finley and Jason Grimsley pitching in Boston Tuesday and Wednesday. The rotation for next weekend’s series in New York will be Jim Abbott Friday, Scott Sanderson or Springer Saturday and Finley Sunday. . . . Langston, who underwent surgery Tuesday to have torn cartilage removed from his right knee, said he “felt great” Saturday and was walking without a limp. The left-hander hopes to return before the projected six- to eight-week absence. “Six to eight weeks,” he said, “those numbers are just too big for me.” . . . A combined 65 runs were scored in the three American League games on the West Coast Friday night, Angels-Cleveland (21), Oakland-Minnesota (20) and Kansas City-Seattle (24).