Sacramento A’s slugger Nick Kurtz (16) rounds the bases after hitting one of his two home runs against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento on Mon Jun 15, 2026 (Golden Bay Times photo)

Kurtz and McNeil Turn Pirates Into Plank Walkers

By Mauricio Segura

WEST SACRAMENTO–Nick Kurtz gave the Sacramento Athletics exactly what they needed after a missed chance in the first inning: a reminder that baseball is finicky and rewards on its own terms instead of when most expected. The A’s deafeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-3 at Sutter Health Park on Monday night. 

Sacramento loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the first on singles by Kurtz, Shea Langeliers and Tyler Soderstrom, only to see three straight strikeouts leave them stranded like Tom Hanks on a pacific island, minus the volleyball. That could have turned into a sour opening. Instead, the A’s simply waited one inning before turning the game in their favor for good.

Henry Bolte started the second with a double to right, and Jeff McNeil followed with an RBI single to left that scored Bolte and snapped his 0-for-20 skid. Kurtz then delivered the real damage, driving a two-run homer to left-center that put the Athletics ahead 3-0 and gave J.T. Ginn room to work.

Ginn used that room well. He handled traffic and kept Pittsburgh from building anything dangerous. Bryan Reynolds singled in the first, Endy Rodríguez reached in the second, and the Pirates put two aboard in the third before Ginn got Ryan O’Hearn looking to end the inning.

Pittsburgh’s only run against him followed a Zack Gelof fielding error in the fourth. Nick Gonzales reached, Rodríguez singled, and Jake Mangum dropped a run-scoring hit into left. But Ginn quickly stopped the inning from growing, getting Esmerlyn Valdez to bounce into a pitcher-to-second-to-first double play. Ginn finished six innings, allowing six hits, one unearned run, two walks and three strikeouts.

The Athletics added another burst in the bottom of the fourth. Lawrence Butler singled, Bolte moved him over, and McNeil launched a two-run homer to right, ensuring his slump stayed buried. Suddenly, the same player who entered searching for a hit had three RBIs by the fourth inning. For Sacramento, the runs were starting to roll off the assembly line.

Soderstrom and Jacob Wilson opened the fifth with back-to-back hits, including Wilson’s ground-rule double down the right-field line. Gelof then extended his career-best hitting streak to 19 games with an RBI single to center, scoring Soderstrom and pushing the lead to 6-1. Gelof’s streak had already been one of the better runs in the majors, and even with an error earlier in the game, he still found a way to add another mark to it with his bat.

The seventh inning turned the game from comfortable to completely out of reach. Gelof reached on an error by Brandon Lowe, Butler doubled him home, Bolte added an infield single, and McNeil singled to right to score Butler. Then Kurtz returned for his second big swing of the game, sending a three-run homer to left.

His second blast gave him three hits, two home runs and five RBIs, and it fit neatly with the tear he has been on. Kurtz entered riding a seven-game hitting streak and ranked among the league’s best in on-base percentage, walks, OPS and run production. Against Pittsburgh, he looked every bit like a hitter pitchers cannot treat casually.

Pittsburgh found one final run in the eighth when Rodríguez homered to left-center off Mason Barnett, but Justin Sterner’s scoreless seventh and Barnett’s two-inning finish kept the Pirates from making the score interesting. Spencer Horwitz doubled with two outs in the ninth, but Brandon Lowe flied out to left to close an 11-2 Athletics win.

The A’s finished with 15 hits, including three from Kurtz, three from McNeil, two from Soderstrom and two from Bolte. Butler also scored twice and drove in a run, while Wilson’s double helped set up the fifth-inning push. After a rough loss in their previous game, the Green and Gold responded with the kind of complete win that gives a team a little swagger back.

Game 2 brings another right-handed duel, with Jack Perkins (2-3, 6.25 ERA, 43 K) taking the ball for Sacramento against Mitch Keller (5-4, 5.14 ERA, 58 K) for Pittsburgh, with first pitch scheduled for 6:40 p.m. Pacific Tuesday night.

Costa Rican-born Mauricio Segura has been covering sports in the Bay Area since 2001 for a variety of magazines and newspapers, as well as his own publication, Golden Bay Times.

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