In his farewell season in 2016, David Ortiz positively scoffed and sneered and even snarled at that old figure, Father Time. Playing his final game of the year just a couple of months shy of his 41st birthday, Ortiz concluded his age-40 campaign with 38 round-trippers and a .620 slugging percentage … one of 294 players ever to post a 30-homer, .600-slugging season – the oldest to do it, creakier than Henry Aaron in 1973 or Barry Bonds in 2004 (both did this in their age-39 campaigns).
In the opposite direction, there’s the precocious trio of Mel Ott (1929), Ted Williams (1939) and Álex Rodríguez (1996), who each hit these two bars in their respective age-20 seasons – the youngest to do such a thing. There are 12 others in age-22 or younger seasons who fit the bill, including some insta-immortal names like Jimmie Foxx and Joe DiMaggio and Eddie Mathews and Albert Pujols. 22-year-old Bryce Harper did this in his MVP campaign in 2015; 22-year-old Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. accomplished this in his breakout 2021. It’s this kind of company and numerology that can produce the excitement pointed in Nick Kurtz’s direction – that’s 22-year-old Nick Kurtz, he of the .626 slugging percentage and 30 home runs.
The Athletics’ Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers each connected on his 30th home run of the year.
~For Kurtz, his 30th home run moved him past Joe DiMaggio (29 home runs in 1936) and into a group of seven first-year batters who reached 30 while being in an age-22 or younger season.
39 Cody Bellinger in 2017
38 Frank Robinson in 1956
37 Albert Pujols in 2001
31 Ted Williams in 1939
31 Eloy Jiménez in 2019
30 Pete Incaviglia in 1986
30 Nick Kurtz in 2025
~Kurtz is one of 50 players with a 30-homer campaign in his age-22 or younger season. Among all of them, he carries one of the lowest (best) AB/HR rates:
Fewest AB/HR: Players With 30+ HR in an Age-22 or Younger Season
10.87 Boog Powell (39 HR) in 1964
11.38 Fernando Tatis, Jr. (42 HR) in 2021
11.90 Eddie Mathews (40 HR) in 1954
12.13 Nick Kurtz (30 HR) in 2025
12.14 Giancarlo Stanton (37 HR) in 2012
~For Langeliers, this new career high made him the second Athletics catcher to reach 30 in a season, after Terry Steinbach and his 35 in 1996.
~With Langeliers joining Cal Raleigh (53) and Hunter Goodman (30) in the 30-homer club, this 2025 campaign is the third in history to see three (or more) catchers reach the number. In 1996, the aforementioned Steinbach was one of four, joined by Todd Hundley, Mike Piazza and Benito Santiago. Three years later, Mike Lieberthal, Piazza and Iván Rodríguez made 1999 the second season to showcase all this pop from behind the plate.
Paul Skenes allowed two hits and no walks over five scoreless innings in a no-decision, lowering his ERA to 1.92 and his WHIP to 0.921. Since 1893, eight qualifying NL/AL pitchers in an age-23 or younger season have finished a campaign with an ERA below two and a WHIP south of one. That octet, plus Skenes, shows up in this fashion (if the number was the best in the league, it is bolded).
1905 Ed Reulbach (1.42 ERA & 0.963 WHIP) for the Cubs
1908 George McQuillan (1.53 & 0.984) for the Phillies
1908 Walter Johnson (1.65 & 0.964) for the Senators
1909 Harry Krause (1.39 & 0.939) for the Athletics
1910 Walter Johnson (1.36 & 0.914) for the Senators
1914 Dutch Leonard (0.96 & 0.886) for the Red Sox
1971 Vida Blue (1.82 & 0.952) for the Athletics
1985 Dwight Gooden (1.53 & 0.965) for the Mets
2025 Paul Skenes (1.92 & 0.921) for the Pirates
Dylan Beavers doubled and later singled in the game-winning run to lead the Orioles to a 2-1 walk-off win against the Pirates. Baltimore has gone 7-1 this September, with each of their past four wins being of the walk-off variety (they have five walk-off victories for the entire year). As for Beavers, he’s played 20 games and collected 18 hits for a nifty .305 average. Since 1954, when the franchise began playing home games in Baltimore, 15 Orioles have come out of their first 20 games with a .300 or better average (minimum 60 plate appearances), with Beavers one of two to do this in 2025, along with Jeremiah Jackson (.328). Ryan Mountcastle owns the highest mark among these 15, with a .368 in 2020.
For the seventh time in franchise history, the Brewers got home runs from its first two batters of the game. In this instance, the instant pop from Brice Turang and Jackson Chourio wasn’t enough, as Milwaukee dropped a 6-3 decision. The team had come out on top in five of the previous six games their first two batters went deep.
Maikel Garcia, Bobby Witt, Jr., and Vinnie Pasquantino combined to go 6-for-12 with two runs and two RBI in Kansas City’s 4-3 win over Cleveland. At shortstop, Witt leads the team with a 136 OPS+; (primarily) at third, Garcia is second among all qualifiers at 129; first baseman Pasquantino is third, at 117. The Royals have never had three members of their infield* finish a season with an OPS+ of at least 115.
*Using 100 games at a position as a minimum
Agustín Ramírez drove in his 62nd run of the year, tying Miguel Cabrera (2003) for the second most for any Marlin in his debut season. These two are behind Dan Uggla and his 90 in 2006.
Jakob Marsee went 4-for-5 and has 48 hits through his first 39 games. Since 1993 (the Marlins’ debut season), 47 players have collected at least that many through their first 39, with Ichiro Suzuki having the most, 66 (Brian Hunter’s 62 are the second most). There are a few fellow Marlins joining Marsee on the list: Hanley Ramírez (51), Dan Uggla (48), Marcell Ozuna (48) and Logan Morrison (48). Among all 47 participants in this list-making, Marsee’s .977 OPS ranks as the 11th highest, in between Fernando Tatis, Jr.’s .988 in 2019 and the .953 from Hunter Pence in 2007 and Yermín Mercedes in 2020-2021.
Cristopher Sánchez (6.0 IP, 1 R) recorded his 13th win of the year to tie Jesús Luzardo for the Phillies’ team lead. With these two southpaws one ahead of left-handed teammate Ranger Suárez in the wins column, the 2025 Phillies have a staff that’s seen output from the portside like this 20 previous times. The 1931 Giants were the first team to have a trio of left-handed starters (at least 75% of their games in starts) each get to at least a dozen wins, thanks to Carl Hubbell, Clarence Mitchell and Bill Walker. Before the 2025 Phillies (the only Phillies team on this list of 21), the 2022 Dodgers had been the most recent to make this claim.
Riley Greene hit his 33rd home run of the year – this is a lot of longballs for a Tiger so young …
Detroit: Most HR’s in an Age-24 or Younger Season
36 Hank Greenberg in 1935 (age-24 season)
35 Rudy York in 1937 (age-23 season)
33 Rudy York in 1938 (age-24 season)
33 Riley Greene in 2025 (age-24 season)
32 Matt Nokes in 1987 (age-23 season)
152 players in history have reached at least 200 home runs through their age-30 season. On Wednesday, Carlos Correa became that 152nd, and joined six others in the collection as players to have at least two-thirds of their games at short at this stage of their career. The seven and their tallies:
464 Álex Rodríguez
298 Ernie Banks
259 Cal Ripken, Jr.
248 Francisco Lindor
224 Vern Stephens
200 Corey Seager
200 Carlos Correa
Nico Hoerner stole his 25th and 26th bases of the year, giving his Cubs club three players with at least 25 (Pete Crow-Armstrong is at 34, Kyle Tucker at 25). Chicago last had three players get this larcenous in 1985, when Ryne Sandberg swiped 54 bags, Davey Lopes chipped in with 47 and Bob Dernier took 31.
Junior Caminero went yard for the 42nd time in 2025 and went a long ways back in baseball history to match an inner circle Hall of Famer. With his 42nd, Caminero matched Mel Ott (42 home runs in 1929) for the second most ever for a player in age-21 or younger season. The only guy with more: Eddie Mathews, with his 47 in 1953.
Nick Pivetta turned in seven scoreless innings for the Padres in a no-decision. The right-hander has five starts this season that have gone at least seven innings and brought forth no runs allowed, which is a number that no other NL pitcher can match (Detroit’s Tarik Skubal has nine, the only pitcher in the Majors with more than Pivetta).
~Pivetta owns the NL’s third lowest WHIP, with a 0.951 that would also stand as the second lowest in team history (notwithstanding Dinelson Lamet’s 0.855 in 69.0 innings in 2020), bettered by only Yu Darvish’s 0.950 in 2022.
Blake Snell fanned 11 over six scoreless innings to help the Dodgers cruise to a 9-0 win. For the southpaw, this effort marked the 21st time in his career he’s reached double-digits in strikeouts while allowing no runs. This is a lot – enough to have the 32-year-old firmly within the top 10 for the Modern Era.
1901-2025: Most Games With 10+ K’s and No Runs Allowed
58 Nolan Ryan
44 Randy Johnson
31 Roger Clemens
30 Pedro Martínez
28 Max Scherzer
27 Chris Sale
24 Clayton Kershaw
21 Tom Seaver
21 Blake Snell
19 Justin Verlander
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.