CHICAGO – When Athletics manager Mark Kotsay saw the email containing MLB’s monthly awards pop up on his phone Wednesday morning, he was admittedly a bit surprised when he opened it and saw Nick Kurtz had won American League Player of the Month for May.
“For me, it was like a very sleepy, successful month,” Kotsay said. “I had to think about it and said, ‘Hey, that was a pretty good month.’”
By no means did Kotsay not think Kurtz wasn’t deserving. It’s just that, in a short amount of time, the reigning AL Rookie of the Year has performed so consistently that it’s hard to distinguish which month is truly spectacular. For the most part, they’ve all been great since Kurtz debuted in the big leagues last April.
Fresh off his award on Wednesday night, Kurtz reminded everyone of his steady greatness. After the A’s overcame a two-run deficit against the Cubs with two runs in the eighth to tie it and eventually send it to extras, Kurtz capped the late comeback in the 10th with an RBI single to put them ahead for good in a 5-4 victory at Wrigley Field.
Wednesday marked the A’s 16th comeback win of the season, which is tied for most in the AL and tied for fourth most in the Major Leagues. This one had a laundry list of heroes beyond Kurtz.
It begins with the bullpen, which put up zero after zero to keep the A’s in the game. Joel Kuhnel started it off by entering in relief of starter Jeffrey Springs -- pulled with two outs in the fourth after allowing four runs on seven hits and a walk -- and stranding runners at the corners to keep the deficit at two runs.
From Kuhnel on, six A’s relievers combined for 6 1/3 scoreless innings. The night ended with Justin Sterner stranding the automatic runner at third in the 10th to notch his first Major League save.
“The highlight of the day was the bullpen,” Kurtz said. “To go that many innings of shutout baseball, they kept us in that game.”
Much like the A’s (30-31) continue to be a better overall team on the road -- their 19-14 record away from home is only percentage points behind the Guardians (19-13) for best in the AL -- their bullpen is locking it down as visitors. Wednesday’s scoreless effort dropped the A’s bullpen’s road ERA to 2.69, which is the lowest in MLB.
“They definitely picked me up huge,” Springs said. “They’ve been doing a great job all year. They’ve had to wear a lot more than they probably should lately, but credit to them. Everybody who came in threw the ball very well. … I definitely owe them after tonight.”
Another protagonist in this comeback was Colby Thomas. Sitting on the bench for seven innings, Thomas entered as a pinch-hitter for Carlos Cortes in the eighth following a stretch in which the A’s had collected just two singles from the third through the seventh, and he led off with a booming 426-foot solo shot to left-center field off left-hander Caleb Thielbar. That homer ignited a two-run rally, which saw Tyler Soderstrom tie the game with an RBI single.
Thomas knows his role. It’s simple. His opportunities to start will mostly come against left-handers. Aside from that, his job is to study each opposing team’s left-handed relievers and prepare to face them at some point in the game. So far this season, he’s batting .297 (11-for-37) against southpaws.
“Obviously, Colby is on this roster because we know the damage he can do against lefties,” Kotsay said. “It’s been few and far between in opportunities for him. It’s never easy when you don’t get consistent at-bats. … That ball was crushed. Huge at-bat for us. It was a big momentum [shift] in the game.”
Just as they hoped, a return to the road has seen a return to winning for the A’s, who have a chance to sweep the Cubs on Thursday. By winning their first two games of June, they’ve also flipped the page nicely on what was an overall difficult month of May with a record of 11-17.
“To take the first two games of the series is huge coming off a May that we weren’t necessarily proud of and felt we could have played a lot better,” Kurtz said. “Hopefully, this sets the standard for the rest of the month.”