The Oakland ball club’s newcomer, Nick Kurtz, achieved a very unusual accomplishment in baseball Friday night while playing in Houston, connecting for four long balls in a single contest. This makes him only the 20th player in Major League Baseball history to accomplish this notable deed. He joins Eugenio Suárez of the Arizona team, who achieved this feat back on April 26, as only the second player this season to reach this milestone. The previous instance of this occurrence was in 2017, when Scooter Gennett and J.D. Martinez both achieved it.
Kurtz accomplished this feat in a decisive 15-3 victory for the Athletics over the Astros.
Here is the footage of Kurtz’s fourth historic hit of the game.
It might seem a bit simplistic to describe it this way, but Kurtz didn’t only hit the four home runs. He batted 6 for 6, which included four homers, a two-bagger, six runs scored, and eight runs batted in during the contest.
Strangely enough, this is the first instance of a player from the American League hitting four homers in a game since Josh Hamilton achieved it on May 8, 2012. In the National League, there have been 13 instances of a four-homer game. Kurtz’s performance marks the seventh in the AL, putting him in the company of legends such as Lou Gehrig, Rocky Colavito, and Carlos Delgado. Kurtz is the first player ever to accomplish a four-homer game while wearing the Oakland jersey.
The accolades continue to pile up (all stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com’s Stathead):
- Kurtz is the first rookie to become part of the exclusive four-homer club.
- At the age of 22, Kurtz is the youngest player to ever hit four homers in a single game.
- He is the second player to register six hits in a game, a feat last achieved by Shawn Green on May 23, 2002.
- Kurtz is the sixth player to accumulate at least four homers and eight RBI in the same contest.
- Considering all of these achievements, Kurtz is the first player to ever secure six hits, four homers, and eight RBI in a single game.
- This was the eighth time in the history of the Athletics that a player has achieved six hits in a game, which is a tie for the franchise’s record. Kurtz is the youngest on this list, surpassing Jimmie Foxx from 1930 by a little less than 100 days.
- This was only the ninth time an Athletics player has recorded eight or more RBI, and, once again, Kurtz is the youngest on this list. However, this does not tie the franchise record. This honor belongs to Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, who drove in 10 runs on June 14, 1969.
- Only nine times in history has a player, from any team, managed to score six runs in a single game. The most recent occasion was in 2004, when Joe Randa of the Royals accomplished this feat. Once again, Kurtz is the only player in Athletics history to have ever done this. Even the great Rickey Henderson never scored six times in a game.
This is potentially the best game of Kurtz’s career, especially considering he is a rookie. As mentioned above, this type of performance is exceptionally rare for any player. This phenomenal game did not arise completely out of nowhere for the young slugger, however.
Kurtz has been performing exceptionally well for some time. Kurtz, who was drafted fourth overall by Wake Forest in 2022, was considered a top-40 prospect in baseball as he started the season and received a fair amount of enthusiasm when he joined the Athletics on April 23. It took some time for him to adjust, which is often the case for rookie sluggers. He didn’t hit his first homer until his 17th game and his second until his 24th. If one focuses on his statistics starting with that 24th game, May 20, it becomes clear that everything began to click for him.
Prior to May 20, Kurtz was batting .208/.259/.299 with one home run and six RBI across 23 games. Since that date, in 43 games, Kurtz is batting .352 with a slugging percentage of .870, including 16 doubles, a triple, 22 home runs, 53 RBI, and 39 runs scored.
Kurtz’s current season stats are .305/.374/.686. He doesn’t have enough at-bats to be considered for the batting title, as he has had 271 plate appearances during the season, and a player needs 3.1 per team game (329 would qualify him currently). He will likely qualify later in the season. If he was eligible, he would rank seventh in average, second to Aaron Judge in slugging, and second, again to Judge, in OPS.
All of this has made Kurtz a dominant force in the American League Rookie of the Year competition. His teammate, Jacob Wilson, who was a starter in the All-Star Game, was the clear favorite to win for most of the first half of the season. After Friday’s incredible six-hit, four-homer game, Kurtz is now -2000 (according to BetMGM) to win the award, with Wilson in second place at +800, and no other player has odds shorter than +2000.
All of this explains that while Kurtz’s dominant performance on Friday night might be the defining moment in turning heads nationally toward the impressive rookie season he is having, he was already having an outstanding year.
And now he has delivered one of the most remarkable individual performances in the history of major league baseball.
