TAMPA -- After a lifetime of wondering what it might be like to reach the big leagues, Nathan Church was astonished to find that reality was even better than he ever dreamed it would be.
And that was before the rookie center fielder notched his first MLB hit or his first MLB home run, both of which came in the Cardinals’ 10-6 loss to the Rays at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Friday.
Church, 25, made his MLB debut last Sunday at Busch Stadium when center fielder Victor Scott II went on the injured list with a sprained left ankle. Church, the club's No. 14 prospect and a standout all season at Double-A Springfield and Triple-A Memphis, went 0-for-4 in that first game vs. the Yankees, a combined 0-for-6 in Miami across two games this week and 0-for-4 on Thursday vs. the Rays. Finally, against Tampa Bay starter Adrian Houser in the fifth inning Friday, Church laced a 99.4 mph liner through the left side of the infield for his first MLB hit.
Two innings later, Church blistered a Houser slider a Statcast-projected 414 feet for his first big league homer.
Despite those initial struggles before hitting it big on Friday, Church admitted to having the time of his life while living out the dream he always had while growing up in Southern California, starring collegiately at UC Irvine and getting picked by the Cards in the 11th round of the 2022 MLB Draft.
“I mean, it's a dream come true because I have been wanting this since I was a kid,” said Church, whose mother, Leslie, father, John and sibling Maddox made the trek from St. Louis to Miami to Tampa to savor Nathan’s first week in the big leagues. “Being here is something special. As a kid, you don’t really know what the big leagues will be like, but it’s actually better than imaginable. I’m just so excited to be here and I want to make the best of it.”
Though it took him a few games to make an impact at the plate, Church showed off the stellar throwing arm that helped him reach the big leagues in Thursday’s 7-4 win in Tampa. With the Cardinals clinging to the lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, Church not only ended the inning by throwing Nick Fortes out at third, but the tag was applied before Everson Pereira crossed the plate to save a run.
“I knew if the ball was hit hard to me, I’d throw it to third, but if it took me longer to get to the ball, I’d throw it to second to keep the double play in order,” Church said, reliving the play. “[The Rays] probably had no idea about my throwing arm, but they know now not to run. It was a good play and a huge play because the run didn’t score, and it was a momentum stopper.”
Added Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol on Thursday: “I just like the way that he plays. The hit will come for him, but he does a lot of other things well for us. He has that strong arm, he runs balls down and plays great defense for us. He works hard at it, and it shows."
The hit did come. Two of them, in fact.
The Cardinals fell behind 7-1 on Friday with veteran right-hander Miles Mikolas struggling again on the road. Mikolas gave up 10 hits in a game for the third time this season and left after yielding five runs (four earned) over 2 2/3 innings. It was hardly the outing desired by Mikolas, a South Florida native who turns 37 years old on Saturday. He lamented the fact that five of the hits he allowed were soft contact that never left the infield.
“You go in knowing that this is going to be a tough place to pitch and the balls they hit out, at least one of them, they hit pretty good,” said Mikolas, who saw his ERA climb to 5.17. “But five of the hits, I don’t think they even left the infield grass. It’s tough because I was making good pitches. I kept the ball down for the most part and kept the ball on the ground, but it didn’t work out.”
Church sparked a Cardinals rally back into the game in the seventh inning by going down in the zone and ripping a 1-1 slider over the wall in right field. He admitted his first hit in the fifth made him feel more relaxed when he drilled his two-run shot that left the bat at 104.3 mph.
“I had a good feeling about it and was hoping it was going over because I pimped it a little bit,” he said. “It was an exciting moment. I was just looking for a good pitch to hit and I got it.”