A’s trio of sluggers have a friendly home run race brewing. Who will win?

With a few weeks left to go in the Athletics’ first season playing in West Sacramento, and no reasonable chance at making the MLB postseason, the A’s top three hitters have a bit of friendly competition brewing down the home stretch: Who ends up with the team home run lead?

Designated hitter Brent Rooker, catcher Shea Langeliers and rookie first baseman Nick Kurtz have been in a three-horse race for that title since spring, but on Wednesday it was Langeliers who became the first to reach 30 homers.

It took Kurtz all of one inning to match Langeliers at 30 blasts, doing so in the second inning of a 5-4 home win over the Boston Red Sox. Rooker trails with 27.

“Me and Shea are always going back and forth, ‘I’m gonna catch you’ kind of thing,” Kurtz said before a home game against the Texas Rangers late last month.

“There were times throughout the year when he was ahead of me and I caught up to him, and I went ahead of him and he caught up to me. So it’s kind of a little back and forth trying to beat each other.”

A’s manager Mark Kotsay after Wednesday’s win said Langeliers and Kurtz are both having an “incredible” year.

“To get to 30, pretty great accomplishment,” Kotsay said. “Especially for our backbone.”

Best A’s home run of the year?

Kurtz made history July 26 when he hit four home runs in a game, becoming the first rookie and 20th player overall to do so.

But asked to choose his favorite home run of the season, Kurtz instead pointed to the week of June 16, when he hit two walk-off homers against the Houston Astros including one off premier reliever Josh Hader.

“Hader’s one of the best left-handed relievers of the last decade. A guy I grew up watching, like, ‘I hope I never have to face that guy.’ And I got the chance to do it and hit a walk-off homer, so that was probably the coolest for me.”

Another team highlight, in one of the A’s most exciting wins of the season, came when Langeliers hit a go-ahead grand slam off reigning American League Cy Young Award Winner Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers. The blast kickstarted the A’s first series sweep at Sutter Health Park, the team’s temporary digs through 2027.

“That was one of the cooler moments I’ve had since being in the big leagues,” Langeliers said.

Kurtz joked that in terms of the internal competition, the homer off Skubal “should count as five.”

Eleven of Langeliers’ 30 home runs this season came last month, helping him earn AL Player of the Month honors for August.

Kurtz, 22, is the heavy favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year award. MLB.com in its final poll of the year Monday had 39 of its 41 panel experts select Kurtz over Boston Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony.

“For Kurtz, as a rookie to continue to show things that really we haven’t seen in a long time, is pretty special,” Kotsay said.

The A’s enter this weekend’s series against the Cincinnati Reds with a 67-80 record. They remain in last place in the AL West, as they have been most of the season.

“We’ll talk about it after the game or before the game, but once the game starts, it’s really all about winning,” Kurtz said of the team home run lead. “That’s all that matters.”

Three 30-home run sluggers?

On the A’s potent offense, Kotsay said his hitters represent a “nucleus of guys in that room that are driving this team.”

“We’ve seen that in the past with a nucleus of guys. So, definitely exciting.”

If Rooker also gets to 30 homers, it’ll be the first time the franchise has had a trio reach that milestone in a single season since 2019 (Matt Olson and Matt Chapman each hit 36 that year, followed by Marcus Semien with 33).

“It’s not something to get overly fixated and go up there and try to chase it,” Langeliers said late last month. “Just go up there and be who you are at the plate.”

Rooker interjected: “Oh I’m gonna chase it.”

“Well, Rook will chase it. Me and Kurtz will just play.”

Rooker hit 39 home runs to lead the team in 2024, the A’s last season in Oakland before their planned permanent move to Las Vegas. Langeliers had 29.

Langeliers has hit 26 of his 30 homers this season while at the catcher position, along with 27 of his 29 last year. Only Terry Steinbach (34 in 1996) have hit more while playing catcher in A’s franchise history.

“Hitting with these guys in the same lineup every night’s a blast, getting to watch them do their thing,” Rooker said. “I think we’re all cheering each other on and we’re all enjoying each other’s success, and we know as one of us has success, it makes it easier for the other two, or three or four or five or however many else in the lineup to have success, to feed off each other.

“And the hitting is contagious.”

The Bee’s Chris Biderman contributed to this story.