Athletics rookie Nick Kurtz pulled off one of many rarest feats in baseball Friday evening in Houston when he hit 4 residence runs in a single sport, turning into simply the twentieth participant in MLB historical past to take action. He’s the second participant this season to perform such a feat, together with Eugenio Suárez of the Diamondbacks again on April 26. Beforehand, this hadn’t occurred since 2017 when Scooter Gennett and J.D. Martinez each did it.
Kurtz did so in a 15-3 A’s victory over the Astros.
This is Kurtz’s historic fourth shot of the sport.
I’d sound foolish to say it like this, however Kurtz did not simply hit the 4 homers, both. He went 6 for six with 4 homers, a double, six runs and eight RBI within the sport.
Oddly, that is the primary four-homer sport from an American League participant since Josh Hamilton did it Might 8, 2012. There have been 13 four-homer video games on the NL aspect, and that is the seventh within the AL, becoming a member of a listing that features the likes of Lou Gehrig, Rocky Colavito and Carlos Delgado. Kurtz is the first-ever A’s participant to have a four-homer sport.
The superlatives hold coming (all stats through baseball-reference.com’s Stathead):
- Kurtz is the primary rookie to hitch the four-homer membership.
- At 22 years previous, Kurtz is the youngest participant ever to document 4 homers in a sport.
- He’s solely the second participant on the record to have six hits within the sport, together with Shawn Inexperienced on Might 23, 2002.
- Kurtz is the sixth participant to have no less than 4 homers and eight RBI in the identical sport.
- If we put all of it collectively, Kurtz is the primary participant ever with no less than six hits, 4 homers and eight RBI in the identical sport.
- This was the eighth time in historical past an A’s participant recorded six hits in a sport, tying the franchise document. Kurtz is the youngest on the record, beating out Jimmie Foxx from 1930 by rather less than 100 days.
- This was solely the ninth time an A’s participant recorded no less than eight RBI and, sure, Kurtz is once more the youngest on that record. It doesn’t, nonetheless, tie the franchise document. That belongs to Corridor of Famer Reggie Jackson, who drove residence 10 runs on June 14, 1969.
- This was solely the ninth time ever, for a participant on any staff, to attain six runs in a single sport. The final time was in 2004, when Joe Randa of the Royals scored six occasions. As soon as once more, Kurtz is the one A’s participant to have ever finished this. Even Rickey Henderson by no means scored six occasions in a sport.
That is almost definitely Kurtz’s profession sport — and as a rookie, no much less. As will be seen above, this kind of sport virtually by no means comes round for anybody. Having an enormous sport didn’t come from out of nowhere for this younger slugger, although.
Kurtz has been on a heater for some time. The fourth total pick of Wake Forest in 2022, Kurtz entered the season as a top-40 prospect in baseball and joined the A’s to respectable fanfare on April 23. It took him a second to get acclimated, because it typically does for rookie sluggers. He did not hit his first homer till his seventeenth sport and did not hit his second till his twenty fourth. If we begin with that twenty fourth sport, Might 20, nonetheless, and take a look at the stat line it jumps out that the whole lot clicked for him.
Earlier than Might 20, Kurtz was hitting .208/.259/.299 with one homer and 6 RBI in 23 video games. Since then, in 43 video games, Kurtz is hitting .352 with an .870 slugging share, 16 doubles, a triple, 22 residence runs, 53 RBI and 39 runs scored.
Kurtz’s line on the season is now .305/.374/.686. He is brief on at-bats by way of qualifying for the batting title as a result of he has 271 plate appearances on the season, and a participant wants 3.1 per staff sport (329 proper now would qualify him). He’ll get there. If he was certified, he’d rank seventh in common, second to Aaron Judge in slugging and second, once more to Choose, in OPS.
All of the whereas, Kurtz has taken the AL Rookie of the 12 months race and made a mockery of it. His teammate, Jacob Wilson, who began the All-Star Recreation, was the odds-on favourite to win just about all through the primary half of the season. After Friday’s six-hit, four-homer explosion, Kurtz is now -2000 (per BetMGM) to win the award with Wilson slotted second at +800, and nobody else has shorter odds than +2000.
All of this was the lengthy method to say that whereas Kurtz’s Friday evening onslaught is the seminal second in turning heads, nationally, as to the superb rookie season that Kurtz is having, he was already having a monster season.
And now he has produced one of many best particular person performances in major-league historical past.