LOS ANGELES -- Overjoyed by the diving play he made at the right-field line to take away a Mookie Betts hit and help preserve a victory for the Cardinals on Monday, Lars Nootbaar’s happiness was tempered a bit by what he believed were acts of friendly betrayal.
When the native of El Segundo, Calif., looked through his phone late Monday night and into the day on Tuesday, he saw several playful text messages about him doing in the Dodgers with his sprawling catch.
“A lot of hate, a lot of hate,” Nootbaar said, still somewhat astonished just before Tuesday’s 12-6 loss to L.A. “A lot of homers forget that they were friends with me long before they were Dodger [fans].
“But, no, it was still cool [making the catch to preserve the win].”
A night after getting seven innings of one-hit pitching from Sonny Gray, veteran right-hander Miles Mikolas didn’t fare anywhere near as well against the Dodgers’ stacked lineup.
Shohei Ohtani opened the bottom of the first with a Statcast-projected 108.3 mph double, and Muncy followed three batters later with a 416-foot homer. After a scoreless second, Muncy and Teoscar Hernández reached Mikolas for two more homers. The 36-year-old Mikolas, whose contract with the Cardinals expires at the end of the season, allowed nine home runs in July, and August is off to a rough start with Tuesday’s three bringing his total to 21 for 2025. Mikolas, who said late Tuesday night that he would like to continue pitching in 2026, has allowed seven homers over his last three starts versus the Dodgers.
As for Nootbaar, he is just happy to be healthy again after missing nearly three weeks with a left costochondral sprain (cartilage that connects the ribs to the sternum). Nootbaar thought he had escaped the injury bug after spending five stints on the injured list in 2023 and ’24 with thumb, back, groin, ribs and oblique maladies. This season, Nootbaar made it 89 games before he was struck again by bad injury luck.
He had four hits in three rehab assignment games with Double-A Springfield, and he’s swung the bat well since rejoining the Cards. He had a hit against the Padres in his first game back and added a ninth-inning single during the Cards’ game-winning rally in the defeat of the Dodgers on Monday. On Tuesday, he singled twice and might have had a three-hit night had he hit the front of the base -- instead of its middle -- while trying to beat out a throw by Muncy.
In years past, Nootbaar, 27, would use his time off during the MLB All-Star break to work in the batting cages with teammate and close friend Nolan Arenado to refine his swing. That work allowed Nootbaar to compile three straight strong second halves, including 25 of his 40 homers from ‘22-’24.
His ribcage injury prevented that this July, but he is hoping he can quickly regain his rhythm and start driving baseballs again.
“I think once the timing comes back, then I'll be [working with hitting coach Brant Brown] and making sure I get back to where I need to be and finish the season strong,” Nootbaar said. “I tend to always have better second halves, and I'm excited about trying to do that again.”
A day later, Nootbaar was still excited about the defensive play that broke the hearts of Dodgers fans and infuriated his friends. While his hitting is still a work in progress, Nootbaar’s defense has been stellar. He ended his rehab stint with a sliding catch for Double-A Springfield and he pulled off “my favorite catch of the year” in Monday’s ninth inning to rob Betts.
On that play, Nootbaar not only covered 116 feet, but he easily hit his fastest defensive sprint speed of the season by scampering at 29.3 feet per second, per Statcast. While Nootbaar has been solid coming in on balls in front of him, the Cardinals are hoping that he can eventually get to that same level on balls in the gaps or over his head.
“The biggest difference for him -- and he’s been working on it a ton -- is when he goes back on a ball or has to run at an angle, he runs sideways with his head on the ball and he rarely just puts his head down and sprints,” said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol, whose staff closely monitors sprint speeds to try to gain edges defensively. “When he goes forward, it’s not a thing because you can just go. But he gets knocked [metrically] on that acceleration because of how he gets there. Because that [diving catch] was forward, I can see why it was his fastest [sprint speed].”