A's 1B Nick Kurtz becomes first rookie in MLB history to post 4-homer game

Last July, Nick Kurtz was selected fourth overall by the Athletics in the 2024 MLB Draft.

This July, he became the 20th player, and the first rookie, in MLB history to post a four-homer game, leading the A’s to a 15-3 win over the Houston Astros on Friday. Here are all four homers and the rest of his 6-for-6 night, featuring an increasingly jubilant A’s broadcast:

Somehow, that wasn’t the end of the 22-year-old Kurtz’s accomplishments, as he tied Shawn Green for the most total bases in a single game with 19.

He also tied Green (and others) for modern era records with six runs scored and five extra base hits. He posted eight RBI, one more than Green’s legendary game in 2002. It’s not hyperbolic to call it the best offensive game in the history of baseball, all accomplished by a player who was in college at the start of the 2024 season.

The punchline to all this was Kurtz’s double in the fourth inning. Had it traveled perhaps two feet farther, we would be talking about the first five-homer game baseball has ever seen.

Kurtz did all that against the first-place Astros, with each homer off a different pitcher. They weren’t exactly the staff aces, though, with starting pitcher Ryan Gusto (4.46 ERA entering Friday), relievers Nick Hernandez (9.00 in one inning), Kaleb Ort (5.40) and Cooper Hummel (position player) all feeling the damage.

It was the second four-homer game of the season, following Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suarez’s big night on April 26.

That performance adds to what was already a breakout campaign for Kurtz, who entered Friday as the AL Rookie of the Year favorite at BetMGM and most certainly exited it that way. He has been the best hitter in baseball — not rookie, just hitter — over the past nine weeks or so and is now about to send some memorabilia to the Hall of Fame.

It has been only 368 days since Kurtz signed his first contract with the A’s, joining the club after back-to-back All-American seasons at Wake Forest. He proceeded to dominate the minor leagues much like he did in the ACC, posting a 1.283 OPS between Single-A and Double-A in 2024, then a 1.040 OPS in Triple-A before his call-up in late April.

Kurtz actually got off to a slow start in his major league career, slashing .208/.259/.299 with only one homer through May 19, the last day of an 0-for-21 skid. Since then, well, he’s slashed .352/.427/.870 with 24 homers in 43 games. That’s a 90.4-homer pace when extrapolated over 162 games.

You have to go back to Joe DiMaggio to find a player with this many extra-base hits in his first 66 MLB games. He has one more than Ted Williams.

Hitters who enter the majors and dominate this much over even just half a season are breathtakingly rare. Kurtz was always seen as one of the best hitters in his draft class, with concerns about injuries and his defensive utility as a first-base only player dragging down his stock, but this is well beyond even the wildest expectations for him.

Since breaking that slump in May, he has been better at the plate than Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Cal Raleigh and every other MLB player you could possibly think of. It’s unlikely he will continue this pace, but there are good players — great ones, even — who go their entire careers without a stretch like this.

So all of that adds up to a win for the A’s. They drafted a guy fourth overall and one year later have a budding superstar. Good work.

The A’s have become baseball’s punchline over the past few years. Some teams have been worse on the field, such as the Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies, but those teams are at least playing at major league stadiums. The A’s are a team that hasn’t touched 70 wins since 2021, currently playing at a Triple-A ballpark in Sacramento, while waiting for a dubiously funded stadium in Las Vegas.

None of that screams “well-run team,” but the interesting thing about the A’s is they now have a very fun collection of young players, who could theoretically be a draw once the team reaches Nevada to open its doors.

Kurtz is the new big name, but there’s also late-blooming All-Star designated hitter Brent Rooker in the middle of the lineup. Kurtz is the Rookie of the Year favorite, but he has company on the leaderboard with Jacob Wilson, the No. 6 pick of the 2023 MLB Draft who is currently hitting .312, and Denzel Clarke, a standout defender who also hit the third-longest homer in MLB this season.

And then there are guys like outfielders Tyler Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler, who have flashed promise in their first few MLB seasons.

Pitching hasn’t been a similar success for the A’s, but every team would rather have a group of promising young hitters with oodles of team control than pitchers. The franchise is still a long ways away from contending for a World Series, but it is miles closer than it was last year.

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A’s 1B Nick Kurtz becomes first rookie in MLB history to post 4-homer game

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