A's No. 2 prospect Nick Kurtz has interesting return to field in Arizona Fall League

Jason Burke | 7 Hours Ago

Jun 19, 2023; Omaha, NE, USA; Wake Forest Demon Deacons first baseman Nick Kurtz (8) celebrates after defeating the LSU Tigers at Charles Schwab Field Omaha. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-Imagn Images / Dylan Widger-Imagn Images

The A's had Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz at the top of their draft board from January all the way until it was their turn to make a selection with the fourth overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. Part of the reasoning for the team having him ranked at the top was his advanced approach at the plate. In each of his three seasons with the Demon Deacons, Kurtz managed to walk more than he struck out, totaling 189 free passes to just 130 punch-outs in college.

That's why it was surprising to see that in his return to the baseball field on Saturday in the Arizona Fall League, Kurtz struck out three times. Obviously this is not an indictment of him as a player or his development in any way, shape, or even form. It's just one of those things that stands out because it's so rare.

This was Kurtz's return from a hamstring injury and he hadn't faced live pitching since August 24, which was roughly two months ago. And even then, he only got into a total of 12 games in the minor leagues, which were the only games he'd played since June. So there may have been a little rust involved.

Yet, we did some digging, and from the stats that were available on the Wake Forest website (2023 game logs for Nick Kurtz were unavailable), this is only the third time that Kurtz has struck out three times in a game. The other two times were once in 2022 against Florida State, and once in 2024, also against Florida State.

Ross Dunn, who was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the tenth round of last year's Draft, turned in a 14 strikeout performance against Wake Forest in '22, and Kurtz accounted for two of those K's. The other Florida State pitcher to strike him out twice was Jamie Arnold in 2024.

In each of those games, a reliever also came in to deliver that third punch-out for the game. In '22 that was Davis Hare, who went undrafted in 2022, but signed with the San Francisco Giants, where he stayed until they released him in March of this year.

The final pitcher from these games was left-hander Brennen Oxford in 2024, though he'd spent three years at Wake Forest from 2020-22, and was a teammate of Kurtz's during that final year. He transferred to FSU for the 2023 season, and after going undrafted in 2024, he ended up signing with Staten Island in the Atlantic League, getting into 12 games.

It's not often that Kurtz strikes out three times in one game, but the two times (that we can see) that it happened before Saturday, it was Florida State that had achieved what nobody else could.

None of the three pitchers that struck out Kurtz on Saturday in the Arizona Fall League attended Florida State.