Cardinals outfielder Nootbaar brings added spice to club, hopes to break September slump

One year ago, with his glove outstretched above his body nearly as far as his tongue was from his mouth, Lars Nootbaar leapt against the right field wall at New York’s Citi Field and brought back a fly ball that might otherwise have been a three-run home run for Pete Alonso of the Mets.

It was a moment in the midst of an historic winning streak that shot him into national notice and flagged, for perhaps the first time, the elite defensive skills that helped him shoot through the Cardinals’ system. Now, establishing himself as an essential part of the outfield rotation for a contender, it’s the glove once again that’s helped to stabilize his play.

“That’s the game,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said Sunday after Nootbaar, in the bottom of the eighth inning in Pittsburgh, dove in and slid to snag one live drive for the first out and sprinted back to leap for another for the third. “Those two plays, that’s the game right there. That opens up a completely different game.”

In trading Harrison Bader earlier this summer and opening up centerfield for Dylan Carlson’s permanent placement, the Cardinals were also making a bet on Nootbaar. He was the most logical fit for an extended assignment in right field and, indeed, got first crack at everyday playing time.

At the plate, for more than a month, Nootbaar more than succeeded. In July and August, he combined to hit .294 with a .421 on base percentage and .574 slugging percentage. He paired his eight home runs with only 27 strikeouts in 171 plate appearances, justifying the extended run he was given to hit leadoff, especially against right-handed starters.

The calendar turn to September has been significantly less kind. Through last weekend’s series in Pittsburgh, Nootbaar put up a 2-for-28 mark with one home run since the start of the month, and yet with Carlson out with a sprained thumb, has largely been able to hang on to his playing time.

“He’s in between,” was Marmol’s assessment of Nootbaar at the plate. “He knows it, and he’s going to get himself out of it. It’ll be a matter of not trying to do too much, take his walks when needed, and then just kind of settle back in.

“If he was too much on the intellectual side, then I’d be a little worried.”

Odd twisting motion

What might otherwise sound like a criticism from his manager is instead an endorsement of the energy Nootbaar brings to the clubhouse and the dugout, and the personality resemblance to a young Golden Retriever with which he carries himself. There’s a skill to a clubhouse presence, and on a 20-80 scouting scale, Nootbaar’s teammate skills would be at the extreme top of the range.

If you’ve noticed an odd twisting motion from the dugout in the midst of a rally, that’s courtesy of Nootbaar and Andrew Knizner encouraging teammates to grind out at bats by miming the action of a pepper grinder.

Concerned, perhaps, that the gesture was a bit too esoteric, a team dinner last Thursday night in Pittsburgh in honor of Nootbaar’s 25th birthday resulted in the acquisition of a literal pepper grinder, full of peppercorns, making its way to the Cardinals’ dugout.

Several of his teammates feigned both ignorance and innocence regarding its origins, and it’s unclear whether the restaurant from which it absconded was aware that a mill was missing.

More about Nootbaar

It does, however, bear a sloppy signature on one side of the wooden surface that, it is rumored, belongs to the server handling the group’s table that night.

When not coming up with new ways to simultaneously dress a salad and encourage someone to take an extra base, it’s Nootbaar’s defensive awareness that, even from right field, allowed him to make a unique play in the first game of the weekend set. A base hit off the bat of Rodolfo Castro dropped in front of him, and he scooped it in time to fire home for a play on Bryan Reynolds at the plate.

The throw, high and wide, was caught by Knizner as Reynolds froze in his tracks. Attempting to catch Reynolds off third, Knizner instead hit him square in the back with a throw. Once Nolan Arenado gathered the ball, he tossed back to Knizner to retire Reynolds at home.

Meanwhile, Nootbaar, seeing an unoccupied second base, snuck in behind Castro there and applied the tag on a true throw from the catcher.

‘I do no good standing in the outfield’

If you were scoring at home, it was 9-2-5-2-9: the only double play with that scoring for the Cardinals since baseball’s 1961 expansion, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

“In that situation, I do no good standing in the outfield,” Nootbaar explained. “Back in Little League, they said to follow your throw on a rundown.”

In doing so, despite Marmol’s broader distaste for the play, Nootbaar again displayed a trait that acts to his benefit in all phases — in the field, at the plate, and in the clubhouse.

Some instincts can’t be taught.