{"id":739896,"date":"2026-06-16T09:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T09:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739896\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T09:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T09:52:11","slug":"nick-kurtz-and-jeff-mcneil-power-the-as-to-an-11-2-victory-over-the-struggling-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739896\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Kurtz and Jeff McNeil power the A’s to an 11-2 victory over the struggling Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — – Nick Kurtz<\/a> hit two homers and drove in five runs, Jeff McNeil<\/a> also went deep and knocked in four, and the Athletics beat the scuffling Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> 11-2 on Monday night.<\/p>\n

J.T. Ginn<\/a> pitched six strong innings for the A’s, who returned to their regular temporary home in California after going 4-2 on a homestand at their Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas,<\/a> where the big league club plans to move into a new stadium in 2028.<\/p>\n

McNeil went 3 for 4 and snapped an 0-for-20 slump with an RBI single in the second. Kurtz followed<\/a> with an opposite-field homer to left for a 3-0 lead and finished 3 for 5.<\/p>\n

McNeil hit his third homer<\/a> to make it 5-1 in the fourth and added an RBI single in the seventh before Kurtz followed with a three-run shot<\/a> to left. Eight of Kurtz’s 18 home runs have come in June.<\/p>\n

Lawrence Butler<\/a> sparked the five-run seventh with an RBI double after Zack Gelof<\/a> reached on a two-out error by second baseman Brandon Lowe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ginn (5-3) allowed just an unearned run and six hits with two walks, throwing 98 pitches.<\/p>\n

Kurtz had the first of three straight singles to load the bases in the first before Jared Jones<\/a> (1-1) came back to strike out the side. Henry Bolte<\/a> hit a one-out double before McNeil drove him in during a three-run second.<\/p>\n

Jones permitted five runs and eight hits over four innings in his fourth start this season.<\/p>\n

Tyler Soderstrom<\/a> singled in front of Jacob Wilson<\/a>‘s ground-rule double to begin the fifth against Pirates reliever Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a>. Gelof upped the majors’ longest current hitting streak to 19 games with an RBI single for a 6-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Jake Mangum<\/a> had an RBI single in the fourth for the Pirates, and Endy Rodr\u00edguez went 3 for 3 with a solo homer in the eighth.<\/p>\n

The Athletics (36-36) moved within a half-game of the first-place Mariners in the AL West.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh (36-37) has lost eight of 10. The Pirates are 9-19 all-time against the A’s.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Pirates RHP Mitch Keller<\/a> (5-4, 5.14 ERA) starts Tuesday opposite Athletics RHP Jack Perkins<\/a> (2-3, 6.25).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — – Nick Kurtz hit two homers and drove in five runs, Jeff McNeil also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[357072,85164,64,63,794,591,5160,85],"class_list":["post-739896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-357072","tag-athletics-athletics","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}