On Friday night Athletics rookie Nick Kurtz became the 20th player in MLB history with four home runs in a single game as part of a 6-for-6, 19 total bases, eight RBI, and six runs scored, the first such statline in MLB history. The total bases and home run marks tied single-game MLB records, and the only other player to match both marks, Shawn Green in 2002, only had seven RBI in his game to Kurtz’s eight. 

A case can easily be made (one that I would wholeheartedly agree with) that this was the greatest single-game hitting performance in MLB history, and in my book that now makes both the greatest hitting performance and greatest pitching performance in MLB accomplishments achieved by rookies.

In 1998, Cubs starter Kerry Wood faced 29 Houston Astro batters in his fifth career start. He struck out 20 (tied for the record in a nine-inning game), got two to flyout, four to groundout, one to pop out, and gave up one single and hit one batter in a complete game shutout. The lone hit was a pitch that on video appears to bounce off the glove off the third-baseman into the shallow outfield, one of just three of Wood’s 122 pitches to leave the infield that entire day, and one that many consider to have been incorrectly ruled a hit instead of an E5. Wood’s effort earned him a record game score of 105, and could have been better if it were a no-hitter. 122 pitches, 20 Ks, 3 pitches to leave the infield and only two doing so before touching the glove of a Cub, in my opinion the greatest pitching performance of all time.

Despite baseball history dating back to the 19th century, it may have been rookies responsible for the two greatest performances both with the bat and the ball, one of the more interesting quirks in the lore of the sport.