Nick Kurtz of A's hits 11th home run in 22-game span, 2 months after big league debut

NEW YORK (AP) — Nick Kurtz tried not to make too much of his latest home run, his 11th in 22 games. However, this one was special.

“I am playing at Yankee Stadium. I grew up a Phillies fan,” the 22-year-old Athletics rookie said. “It's just a surreal moment.”

Kurtz broke open the game with a three-run, sixth-inning drive off Clarke Schmidt into the right field short porch, sparking former Yankee JP Sears and the A's to a 7-0 win Saturday.

“When he hits the baseball, he impacts,” A's manager Mark Kotsay said.

A group of about 20 of Kurtz's family and friends were on hand, including his mom, Marie, and his dad, Jeff.

“Just the easiest. We don't play in Philly this year,” Kurtz said.

He grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, went to Wake Forest and was selected fourth overall in last year's amateur draft, gaining a $7 million signing bonus. He started at Class A Stockton last Aug. 10 and was promoted to Double-A Midland nine days later.

Kurtz began this season at Triple-A Las Vegas and hit .400 with six homers and 17 RBIs in his first eight games as part of an opening 13-game hitting streak. That gave him thoughts of a big league callup, but Kurtz went into a 5-for-27 slump with 12 strikeouts.

He got a surprising call on April 21, an off day, from Aviators manager Fran Riordan.

“I was in bed sleeping and I wake up to a phone call from him telling me I’m going up,” Kurtz said. “So that was pretty cool.”

Kurtz hit an RBI single against Kumar Rocker in his first plate appearance. helping the A's to a 4-0 win over Texas in his debut on April 23. He hit his first home run at Dodger Stadium on May 13, had a tiebreaking, ninth-inning drive at Kansas City on June 15, then a 447-foot, two-run walk-off drive at home against Houston the following night. Three days later, he added a 10th-inning walk-off homer off the Astros' Josh Hader.

Kurtz is hitting .256 with 12 homers. 31 RBIs and and .843 OPS in 45 games.

“There’s just a calming presence about him,” said Sears, who has an adjacent locker at West Sacramento's Sutter Health Park. “At times when guys get here and they’ve done really well before, they try and do too much or try and swing too much or get too mad when they get out. I think there was a week or two where he was hitting the ball pretty hard but just hitting the ball at guys and I think as a young player you get pretty frustrated. But it seemed like he just never did.”

Growing up in Pennsylvania, Kurtz attended games at Citizens Bank Park, sitting in the left-field bleachers near Ashburn Alley.

“I always wanted to catch a home run,” he said.

But Kurtz never did.

“I wasn’t that lucky,” he quickly added.

Kurtz rooted for Ryan Howard and Roy Halladay. His father attended one of the 2009 World Series games against the Yankees, a matchup New York won in six games for its most recent title.

That memory still stings.

“I don’t like talking about it,” Kurtz said.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

The Athletics celebrate Nick Kurtz' (16) three run home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

The Athletics celebrate Nick Kurtz' (16) three run home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Athletics third base Max Muncy (10) and first base Nick Kurtz (16) celebrate their 7-0 win against the New York Yankees after a baseball game, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Athletics third base Max Muncy (10) and first base Nick Kurtz (16) celebrate their 7-0 win against the New York Yankees after a baseball game, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Athletics' Nick Kurtz (16) scores a run on error during Austin Wynns' single during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, June 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)