A's Rookie Nick Kurtz Moves to Top of Leaderboard

Athletics rookie Nick Kurtz, who was still waiting to be drafted at this time last year, just put himself at the top of the rookie home run leaderboard with his game-tying solo shot on Thursday. His 15 home runs this season have been truly eye-popping, and what makes him so impressive is that with just 55 games under his belt in the big leagues, he's serving as a catalyst for the club late in games.

In high leverage situations heading into Thursday's game, he was batting .389 with four home runs, five strikeouts, and four walks (one intentional) in 22 plate appearances. In those 22 plate appearances, he has also racked up 12 RBI. The game-tying home run against the Atlanta Braves in the bottom of the eighth inning gave the A's new life and gave the eventual win a feeling of inevitability.

That he's become so accustomed to hitting game-changing home runs late in games is really a sight to behold, but his game overall has been tremendous as well. He's leading all rookies in baseball in home runs, despite getting called up in late April and having played fewer games than a good portion rest of the players on the leaderboard.

Nick Kurtz stands out for his rate of home runs

His home run rate of one per every 13 at-bats isn't quite at the pace that Seattle's Cal Raleigh is putting up (one every 9.3), but Raleigh is on another level this season. Even Aaron Judge needs ten at-bats between homers.

So what kind of a pace is Kurtz on? He's somewhere around the top-5 in all of baseball this season. Shohei Ohtani (11.58), Kyle Schwarber (11.72) and Eugenio Suarez (11.65) are the rest of the top-five sluggers in baseball this season with at least 29 home runs each. Right behind them is Pete Crow-Armstrong's 25 home runs at a rate of one per every 14.4 at-bats.

Since he returned from a quick stint on the IL in June, Kurtz has really found his stroke at the plate. In 101 at-bats, he has homered ten times, which some quick back of the napkin math puts at one dinger per 10.1 at-bats. While it's a small, and very specific sample size, that's Judge territory.