Nick Kurtz of Athletics becomes 1st MLB rookie to hit 4 homers in a game, matches total base record

HOUSTON (AP) — Nick Kurtz already had three homers and five hits with his parents and godparents in attendance as he began his final at-bat with a chance to make history, but none of that was top of mind for the Athletics' astonishing rookie slugger.

With a position player pitching for the Houston Astros, Kurtz just didn't want to embarrass himself.

The 22-year-old did just fine, lining a 77 mph, 2-0 pitch from outfielder Cooper Hummel to the seats in left field on Friday night for his fourth homer of a game that was, by any standard, one of the best ever by a Major League Baseball player.

“Position player on the mound, I’m just trying to move the ball forward,” Kurtz said. “You don’t want to be the guy who strikes out.”

Kurtz didn't make an out all night. He became the first rookie in major league history to hit four home runs in a game and matched the MLB record for total bases with 19.

“It’s arguably the best game I’ve ever watched from a single player,” Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said. “This kid continues to have jaw-dropping moments.”

Kurtz went deep in the second, sixth, eighth and ninth innings. He also doubled and singled on his 6-for-6 night to equal Shawn Green, who had four homers, six hits and 19 total bases for the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 23, 2002 at Milwaukee.

Kurtz's double in the fourth inning hit just below the yellow line over the visitor’s bullpen, narrowly missing what would have been a fifth homer.

“Everybody was just like, laughing,” A’s shortstop Jacob Wilson said. “How is he doing it? This is not normal. He’s playing a different sport than us right now. It’s not baseball, it’s just tee ball what he’s doing right now.”

It was the 20th four-homer game in major league history and second this season. Arizona’s Eugenio Suárez did it on April 26 against Atlanta. Kurtz and Green are the only players with six hits in a four-homer game.

Kurtz finished with eight RBIs and six runs scored as the Athletics beat the Astros 15-3.

“This is the first time my godparents have been here, so they probably have to come in the rest of the year,” Kurtz said. “My parents flew in today. They’ve been here a bunch, but it was cool to have some family here for that.”

The 6-foot-5 slugger has 23 homers in 66 games this season. The fourth overall pick in last year’s amateur draft out of Wake Forest, he made his major league debut on April 23 and hit his first homer on May 13.

He is the youngest player with a four-homer game. Pat Seerey of the Chicago White Sox was 25 when he hit four longballs on July 18, 1948.

Kurtz homered off each of the Astros’ four pitchers: Ryan Gusto, Nick Hernandez, Kaleb Ort and Hummel, who worked the ninth with the game out of hand. His longest drive was his third, a 414-foot solo shot off Ort in the eighth. His fourth homer landed in the Crawford Boxes in left field at Daikin Park.

“It’s hard to think about this day being kind of real, it still feels like a dream,” Kurtz said in a postgame television interview. “So it’s pretty remarkable. I’m kind of speechless. Don’t really know what to say.”

Kurtz has been the best hitter in the majors in July, ranking first in batting average (.425), on-base percentage (.494), slugging percentage (1.082), runs (22), doubles (13), homers (11) and RBIs (27).

With the baseballs from his last two homers inside a plastic bag at his locker, Kurtz signed scorecards from all four A’s broadcasters and a lineup card. One of the scorecards and a bat were bound for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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Athletics' Nick Kurtz celebrates after hitting a home run against the Houston Astros during the eighth inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Athletics' Nick Kurtz smiles after hitting a three-run home against the Houston Astros during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Athletics' Nick Kurtz celebrates after hitting a three-run home against the Houston Astros during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Athletics' Nick Kurtz (16) celebrates with Carlos Cortes (26) and Gio Urshela after hitting a three-run home against the Houston Astros during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Athletics' Nick Kurtz celebrates after hitting a three-run home against the Houston Astros during the ninth inning of a baseball game Friday, July 25, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Myanmar insisted Friday that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya ethnic minority was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide, as it defended itself at the top United Nations court against an allegation of breaching the genocide convention.

Myanmar launched the campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. Security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes as more than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh.

“Myanmar was not obliged to remain idle and allow terrorists to have free reign of northern Rakhine state,” the country’s representative Ko Ko Hlaing told black-robed judges at the International Court of Justice.

African nation Gambia brought a case at the court in 2019 alleging that Myanmar's military actions amount to a breach of the Genocide Convention that was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Some 1.2 million members of the Rohingya minority are still languishing in chaotic, overcrowded camps in Bangladesh, where armed groups recruit children and girls as young as 12 are forced into prostitution. The sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by U.S. President Donald Trump shuttered thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.

Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya Muslim minority to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982.

As hearings opened Monday, Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow said his nation filed the case after the Rohingya “endured decades of appalling persecution, and years of dehumanizing propaganda. This culminated in the savage, genocidal ‘clearance operations’ of 2016 and 2017, which were followed by continued genocidal policies meant to erase their existence in Myanmar.”

Hlaing disputed the evidence Gambia cited in its case, including the findings of an international fact-finding mission set up by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.

“Myanmar’s position is that the Gambia has failed to meet its burden of proof," he said. "This case will be decided on the basis of proven facts, not unsubstantiated allegations. Emotional anguish and blurry factual pictures are not a substitute for rigorous presentation of facts.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi represented her country at jurisdiction hearings in the case in 2019, denying that Myanmar armed forces committed genocide and instead casting the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led as an unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.

The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.

Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. Both countries are signatories to the genocide convention, and in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.

Gambia rejects Myanmar's claims that it was combating terrorism, with Jallow telling judges on Monday that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn from Myanmar’s pattern of conduct.”

In late 2024, prosecutors at another Hague-based tribunal, the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime for crimes committed against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power from Suu Kyi in 2021, is accused of crimes against humanity for the persecution of the Rohingya. The request is still pending.

FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2017, file photo, smoke rises from a burned house in Gawdu Zara village, northern Rakhine state, where the vast majority of the country's 1.1 million Rohingya lived, Myanmar. (AP Photo, File)