Kurtz extends hot streak at Triple-A with yet another homer
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Heading into the 2024 MLB Draft, Nick Kurtz was considered one of the most advanced college bats available. And just 20 games into his pro career, the Athletics' top prospect has been up to every challenge thrown at him in the Minor Leagues.
Kurtz continued his early-season Triple-A barrage with his fourth home run in eight games this season to get Las Vegas on the scoreboard en route to an 11-4 win over Sacramento on Sunday at Las Vegas Ballpark.
The 22-year-old has gone for extra bases on nine of his 15 hits in 2025, good for a 1.341 OPS, second-best in the Pacific Coast League. In fact, his OPS has been above 1.000 every game this season, never lower than his "mere" 1.167 mark after Opening Day.
The River Cats didn't give him much to hit early on. During his first four plate appearances, only four of the 18 pitches he saw were in the strike zone. No matter, MLB's No. 36 prospect can crush balls to all fields from all sorts of locations.
On a 2-2 count, Kurtz turned on a fastball several inches inside the plate by Giants right-hander Juan Mercedes and launched it 419 feet at 106.2 mph deep onto the berm beyond the right-field wall.
The round-tripper was his fourth-hardest-hit ball of the young season and traveled the second-farthest -- 7 feet short of another homer he hit off Mercedes on Tuesday. MLB's No. 3 first-base prospect has been crushing the ball, with a 65.4 percent hard-hit rate and 10 of his 27 batted balls leaving his bat at more than 100 mph this year.
Kurtz nearly went deep two other times on hard-hit flies. He launched a ball at 97.4 mph off Mercedes to left field in the third and lofted another off righty Carson Ragsdale at 98.3 mph to center in the eighth. Both died at the warning track on his 1-for-4 afternoon.
Kurtz is no stranger to hot streaks at the plate. He went deep in four of his first six professional games with Single-A Stockton last year and had a stretch with Wake Forest last season in which he homered 14 times in 10 games before the A's selected him fourth overall.