When Wake Forest star first baseman Nick Kurtz left a game against Virginia on March 15 with a shoulder injury, things were looking grim for one of the preseason favorites to go No. 1 in the 2024 MLB Draft. An 0-for-1 performance that day dropped his average to .241 and his Demon Deacons squad sat 1-3 in the ACC despite entering the season as the favorite to take home the national title.

Things didn’t get much better when he returned after missing six games. Kurtz hit a low point in the first game of the North Carolina series two weeks ago when his average dipped to .217 after going 0-for-5 in a 6-5 loss. But then, a switch was flipped and Kurtz quickly reminded evaluators why he was a rare college first baseman in consideration to go first in the draft. Starting with a 2-for-5 performance against UNC on March 30, he’s gone 16-for-28 with 10 home runs and 21 RBIs over the last seven games and has raised his average more than 100 percentage points to .318.

The power surge intensified this past weekend against Virginia Tech, when Kurtz homered seven times in three games — including three times on Sunday. He added two more home runs on Tuesday against Coastal Carolina and at one point in that stretch had homered six times in seven at-bats, all against ranked opponents. He now has 13 homers in 26 games this season.

Nick Kurtz last 7 AB:
HR
HR
HR
Groundout
HR
HR
HR
pic.twitter.com/gmPoISdHg1

— Wake Forest Baseball Analytics (@Wake_Analytics) April 9, 2024

Kurtz’s hot streak has coincided with Wake’s midseason turnaround. The Demon Deacons swept Virginia Tech on the road last weekend to improve to 7-8 in the ACC and pounded Coastal Carolina 12-3 on Tuesday night in matchup of nationally ranked teams. With a trip to Boston College on deck this weekend, Wake has a chance to get over .500 in league play for the first time this season.

Kurtz ranked sixth on Keith Law’s most recent ranking of the top-30 MLB Draft prospects. In it, Law says: “Kurtz walks a ton, 63 times in 56 games last year and 14 times in 11 games so far this spring, with some power, although 29 of his career 41 homers have come at Wake’s homer-friendly ballpark. The horror here is that he’s limited to first base, so he has to either show more raw power or prove that the on-base skills aren’t just a function of waiting out mediocre college pitching.”

(Photo of Nick Kurtz courtesy of Wake Forest Athletics)