WEST SACRAMENTO -- Warning to the rest of the league: Nick Kurtz is officially on a heater.
There was a sense that Kurtz was on the brink of a power surge when he blasted an opposite-field grand slam on Wednesday, as crushing homers the other way is usually a telltale sign that the Athletics slugger is feeling it from a power perspective.
Two days later, Kurtz launched a home run for a third consecutive day, this time a Statcast-projected 417-foot three-run blast to left-center in the fifth inning off Giants starter Tyler Mahle that put the A’s ahead for good in Friday night’s 5-2 win at Sutter Health Park.
This is the second three-game stretch of big flies for Kurtz in his young career. The reigning American League Rookie of the Year also homered in three straight games last season from June 18-20.
The similarity between each of Kurtz’s last three homers is quite uncanny. All three traveled over the same portion of the wall in left-center between the 380- and 403-foot mark.
“When he’s going over there to that side of the field with authority, things are going the right way,” said A’s acting manager Darren Bush. “Early in the year, he wasn’t getting a whole lot of pitches out there in the first place and it kind of sped him up. He slowed back down, and now when they’re making mistakes out over for him, he’s taking advantage of it.”
With manager Mark Kotsay away from the club Friday to attend a family event, Bush, the A’s bench coach and director of hitting, was able to provide some extra insight into the day-to-day work he puts in with Kurtz.
Before Friday’s game, Bush said he discussed the approach against Mahle with Kurtz. Despite striking out in his first two at-bats, Kurtz stuck to the plan. In the fifth, he finally got a mistake first-pitch cutter over the outer part of the zone, and Kurtz demolished it.
“First at-bat, [Mahle] pitched him a little bit differently than he expected,” Bush said. “Second at-bat, he made really good pitches. Third at-bat, he made a mistake and Kurtzy got him. He had the plan going into the game. Sometimes, it just takes an at-bat or two to get the pitch, and he got it.”
Kurtz ambushed that first pitch, but that wasn’t necessarily by design.
“Just get the job done,” Kurtz said of his mindset heading into that fifth-inning at-bat with runners at the corners. “Get the run in. Get the ball in the air and give Shea [Langeliers] a chance after me. Don’t ground into a double play and don’t strike out was pretty much the plan. I was looking for something early and he threw me something I can put in the air.”
The homer also extended Kurtz’s on-base streak to a Major League-best 38 games. That stands as the fourth-longest single-season on-base streak in A’s history over the past 40 years, trailing only Jason Giambi (39 in 1997 and 1998) and Mark McGwire (48 in 1996).
“Nick’s just looking for a good pitch to hit,” Bush said. “When you’re a hitter that can change the game with one swing of the bat, a lot of pitchers are careful in where and how they’re pitching you. To be successful, you have to stay disciplined to your approach and to the strike zone. Nick has shown an amazing job of doing that so far, and this streak is showing it.”
The slow start to the season is well behind Kurtz. Now up to eight homers on the year, Kurtz is batting .302 (42-for-139) with 36 walks during his on-base streak.
Nearing a full season of Major League games under his belt, Kurtz has put up MVP-type numbers. Over his first 160 big league games, Kurtz is a career .286 hitter (165-for-576) with 44 home runs, 34 doubles, 115 RBIs, 118 runs scored and 103 walks.
These first-place A’s (23-21) have a potent enough offense that they don’t need to rely solely on Kurtz or any one hitter. As these past few days have shown, though, he is certainly capable of carrying the offense on his back.
“He’s able to pick me and a lot of other pitchers up,” said A’s starter Aaron Civale, now 5-1 with a 2.70 ERA after limiting the Giants to two runs in five innings. “Just quality at-bat after quality at-bat. He’s always a threat. Having him at the top of the lineup is awesome.”