He is a patient hitter with average batting power and explosive power. Defensively, Kurtz is one of the best first basemen ever, routinely making difficult plays and always catching wayward throws to prevent potential infield errors.
Kurtz won back-to-back ACC Player of the Week awards in early April, and shed tears at the plate like never before. Kurtz went 18-for-34 at bat (.529 batting average) with 13 home runs and 26 RBIs as the Demon Deacons won the ACC series over Virginia Tech and Boston College. His slugging percentage in those nine games was an astronomical 1.794.
“I haven't said it yet, but I've been saying him the whole time I've been here,” Wake Forest coach said. tom walter When asked if he had ever seen such an impressive run at bat, he replied: “Every year he does something that I've never seen before. So it wasn't that long ago that we put him in the leadoff spot.”
For Kurtz, securing victory was more important than personal glory.
“It's going well. We're 5-0 in the last five games, so I can't really complain,” he said on the way. “It's definitely a first. It's easy to do it with the people around you. Just being always there to pick you up every time, and even when things aren't going well, you can turn it around and kind of flip a switch. It's also much easier to celebrate. ”
The season started off a bit sluggish offensively, but things got even worse when Kurz was injured and missed six games.
“Jack (Winey) said this injury might be the best thing that happened to me this year,” Kurtz recalled. “It was really nice to take a step back and look at everything from a different perspective and realize how much I should be grateful for the situation I’m in, even if I’m struggling. That's what I mean.
“Where I'm at, Wake Forest, is a place that every kid should dream of coming here. So I'm going to take advantage of every day that I have here, take advantage of it and just keep working.” Please. I have to keep working and playing baseball.''Walt (Wake Forest coach) tom walter) The best way to describe it is that we have 20 to 2, followed immediately by 20 to 12. So you just have to stick to it. ”
In addition to the rotator cuff tear, Kurtz likely also had biceps tendonitis, Walter said.
“A lot of things happened,” Kurtz explained. “You just get frustrated, you dive, you make the tag, you get hit and it keeps getting frustrating because it happens over and over again. I just got to the point of diving and it hurt more than usual.”
Although there were initial concerns that the injury would have more long-term effects, Kurz quickly began his rehabilitation and missed little time.
“I prayed about it every day,” he said. “I was hoping something good would happen and it did, so I’m really grateful for that as well.”
Although he leads the ACC in walks allowed (43), he has become more aggressive in the batter's box, helping Kurtz unleash the incredible impact he had during his streak of winning conference Player of the Week honors.
“He was just getting a little bit more comfortable in the box and getting back to being aggressive,” Walter said. “I think the walks earlier this year made him a little too passive, so he’s coming back aggressive again. Nick Kurtz He’s fun to watch because he’s aggressive in the middle of the field. It was so fun to watch him. He's in a really good spot right now because he's on time with his fastball and he's always handled his offspeed well.
“He got passive and started pressing, and you would see him pull foul balls, which was something you'd never seen before.” Nick Kurtz do. And that's when he was out there, probably guessing a little too much, not in time for the fastball, early on the breaking ball. Every batter goes through it. And he went through that and then got injured and had the opportunity to hit the reset button. ”
After a home loss to the University of North Carolina, the Demon Deacons bounced back and won multiple ACC series while increasing both their national ranking and RPI.
“When you bring in a lot of new players and try to build a team that rivals Omaha, we all knew there was going to be a period of ups and downs, just like in baseball,” Kurtz said. “And we didn't really have it. If you want to talk about last year, we didn't really have it. And the first time we had it was we It was when I was in Omaha.
“So you get to go through the season, you get to go through the lows, you get to celebrate the highs, you get to experience everything in between.”
