{"id":587480,"date":"2026-02-23T00:32:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T00:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/587480\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T00:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T00:32:16","slug":"athletics-nick-kurtz-bats-leadoff-in-spring-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/587480\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletics’ Nick Kurtz: Bats leadoff in spring debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Kurtz<\/a> went 0-for-3 out of the leadoff spot during Sunday’s Cactus League game against the Guardians.<\/p>\n

Though this is only the first action of the spring for Kurtz, Martin Gallegos notes that there’s a real possibility the slugger could man the leadoff role to start the 2026 campaign. Manager Mark Kotsay explained that the order isn’t solidified at this point, and the reason for having Kurtz atop the order in spring games is to get him several at-bats early in exhibitions. However, he also likes the idea of Kurtz leading off, per Gallegos. “My opinion, getting the best hitter on the team the most amount of at-bats is productive,” said Kotsay. “Especially when that at-bat comes around the 18th through the 21st out of a game when a starter is going through a lineup a third time, it’s nice to get those guys an opportunity. It presents a leverage situation.”<\/p>\n

More News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kurtz went 0-for-3 out of the leadoff spot during Sunday’s Cactus League game against the Guardians. Though this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2391],"tags":[537,5,28,4,3226,459],"class_list":{"0":"post-587480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletics","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-fantasy-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-athletics","13":"tag-nick-kurtz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116117134347526068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}