Athletics rookie Nick Kurtz crushes four home runs vs. Astros as part of historic day at the plate

The recruit of athletics Nick Kurtz succeeded one of the rarest exploits in baseball Friday evening in Houston when he hit four circuits in a single match, becoming only the 20th player in the history of the MLB to do this. He is the second player this season to accomplish such a feat, with Eugenio Suárez of Diamondbacks on April 26. Previously, this had not happened since 2017 when the Gennett and JD Martinez scooter both did it.

Kurtz did it during a 15-3 A victory over the astros.

Here is Kurtz’s fourth historic blow from the match.

I can seem silly to say it like that, but Kurtz has not only hit the four circuits either. He went 6 for 6 with four circuits, a double, six points and eight points produced in the match.

Curiously, this is the first match of the four Hommer of an American league player since Josh Hamilton did it on May 8, 2012. There were 13 games at four Hommer on the NL side, and it is the seventh of the AL, joining a list that includes Lou Gehrig, Rocky Colavito and Carlos Delgado. Kurtz is the very first player to have a game at four hommes.

Superlatives continue to come (all statistics via Stathead de Baseball-reference.com):

• Kurtz is the first recruit to join the eighty club.
• At 22, Kurtz is the youngest player to record four circuits in a match.
• He is only the second player on the list for six strokes in the game, with Shawn Green on May 23, 2002.
• Kurtz is the sixth player to have at least four circuits and eight points produced in the same match.
• If we put it all together, Kurtz is the first player with at least six strokes, four circuits and eight points produced in the same match.
• It was the eighth time in the story, an A player recorded six strokes in a match, equaling the franchise record. Kurtz is the youngest in the list, beating Jimmie Foxx from 1930 just under 100 days.
• It was only the ninth time that a player of A recorded at least eight products produced and, yes, Kurtz is again the youngest on this list. However, he did not link the franchise record. It belongs to the temple of renown Reggie Jackson, who returned home 10 points on June 14, 1969.
• It was only the ninth time, for a player from any team, to score six points in a single match. The last time was in 2004, when Joe Randa of the Royals scored six times. Again, Kurtz is the only player to have ever done this. Even Rickey Henderson has never scored six times in a match.

It’s probably Kurtz’s career game – and as a recruit, no less. As we can see above, this type of game almost never presents itself for anyone. However, having a huge match did not come from nowhere for this young hitman.

Kurtz has been on a radiator for some time. Wake Forest’s fourth overall choice in 2022, Kurtz entered the season as a top-40 in baseball and joined the a decent fanfare on April 23. He only hit his first circuit in his 17th match and hit his second before his 24th. If we start with this 24th game on May 20, however, and watch the statistics line, he jumps that everything clicked for him.

Before May 20, Kurtz struck .208 / .259 / .299 with a circuit and six points produced in 23 games. Since then, in 43 games, Kurtz has reached .352 with a percentage of strikes from .870, 16 doubles, a triple, 22 circuits, 53 products produced and 39 points scored.

The Kurtz line on the season is now .305 / .374 / .686. He is short of Bats in terms of qualification for the title of striker because he has 271 appearances in plaques this season, and a player needs 3.1 per team (329 at the moment would qualify him). He will get there. If he was qualified, he would rank seventh on average, second behind Aaron Judge strikes it and secondly, again to judge, in Ops.

During all this time, Kurtz took the recruit race of the year and made fun of it. His teammate, Jacob Wilson, who started the star match, was the favorite of the odds to win almost throughout the first half of the season. After the explosion of four strokes of Friday at four Homer, Kurtz is now -2000 (by BETMGM) to win the prize with Wilson was second at +800, and no one else has shorter ratings than +2000.

All this was along the way to say that, although the Friday evening assault of Kurtz was the founding moment of the head, on a national scale, as for the incredible recruit season that Kurtz has, he already had a season of monsters.

And now he has produced one of the greatest individual performances in the history of major leagues.