Lars Nootbaar's focus is on 'little things' in hopes of finishing strong: Cardinals Extra
TORONTO — At this point in the season, Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar can't do anything about games he's already missed. He can't get those back. There's no time machine that would allow him to change the past. All the left-handed hitting Southern California native can do is focus on how he finishes this season.
For Nootbaar, that means a focus on the "little things."
"Just making sure I'm having good at-bats, playing good defense, taking advantage of base running opportunities – that's something that I want to get better at," Nootbaar said of his goals down the stretch. "We've kind of talked about those things, so make sure I'm finishing strong, staying within my approach and doing the little things right. Don't want to overlook those things, and hopefully bigger things can happen after that."
The 27-year-old has shown flashes or stretches of exciting potential across multiple seasons, but they've repeatedly been interrupted by injuries or lulls in performance that have prevented him from an extended period of the type of eye-opening production he's provided in small doses.
Nootbaar missed 49 games this season due to two IL stints, including the first 13 games of the season due to two fractured ribs he suffered in spring training. He also missed 36 games this season with an oblique injury.
Despite the large chunk of games missed by Nootbaar, he entered Friday night's series opener in Toronto with the second-highest walk total (44) behind only injured starting catcher Willson Contreras (45).
That penchant for walks has been part of the profile Nootbaar has established for himself in the batter's box. That profile prompted the Cardinals to go into this season with Nootbaar as the projected everyday left fielder.
That profile hasn't changed. Even though his overall statistics this season haven't yielded a breakout offensive campaign — he'd posted a .246 batting average, .339 on-base percentage and .400 slugging percentage through 94 games — he'd still shown the things that have enticed the Cardinals' brass.
He has hit the ball hard consistently (hard-hit rate among the 96th percentile of major-league players), doesn't chase pitches out of the zone often (best/lowest chase percentage in majors) and he walks at an extremely high rate (96th percentile of hitters in the majors).
If there's something Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol will be looking for from Nootbaar at the plate in the final stretch of the season, it's definitely more fine-tuning than overhauling.
"More consistency with how he misses," Marmol said of what he wants to see from Nootbaar. 'What I mean by that is we see stretches where he gets off and is driving the baseball and is pulling it in the air, and it looks the way you want it to look.
"But what do the misses look like? I want him to start missing the way he wants to miss rather than pull-side on the ground. Him getting the ball in the air through the middle of the field, and if he catches it out front then he gets the result he wants. That swing-plane being a little bit less steep and his misses being more consistent with still a good swing plane. We've talked about it, and it's something he's continuing to work on, but his last stretch has looked pretty good."
In his past 28 games (25 starts) entering Friday, Nootbaar posted a slash line of .298/.394/.464 (.858 OPS) with nearly as many walks (14) and strikeouts (16). He logged his team-best 11th multi-walk game on Sunday against the Seattle Mariners.
Nootbaar echoed Marmol's sentiment about wanting his "misses" at the plate to fall into a certain category.
Nootbaar explained that better misses, for him, may mean line drives to the left side or through the middle as opposed to those groundballs to the right side that Marmol mentioned.
"You know, when you hit a homer it's a pretty good swing, but (it's about) making sure that when you don't get it perfect-perfect, you're staying inside the baseball and giving yourself a chance to spray the ball all over the field," Nootbaar said.
Getting the ball off the ground a little more would also be a likely biproduct of better missed, but it's not a primary focal point Nootbaar said. The big thing will be understanding how opposing pitchers are trying to attack him.
"It's making sure my misses are correct and staying through the ball a little bit better, having the right approach to do certain things like that," Nootbaar said. "I just think that having myself be in a good spot, having a plan that gets me in that spot better to where I can react better to those pitches and stay through the ball a little bit better, probably get the ball off the ground a little bit more.
"Making sure I have a good approach at the plate. That's the main thing. That's the foundation. I think that is kind of the key to everything else."
Matz remains in bullpen as Cardinals go to six-man rotation
Marmol said the Cardinals will go with a six-man pitching rotation this time through. Sonny Gray started Thursday's the series finale against the Cincinnati Reds at Busch Stadium. Erick Fedde started Frida y night's opener in Toronto against the Blue Jays.
Kyle Gibson (8-6, 4.20) and Miles Mikolas (8-11, 5.55) are slated to start the final two games in Toronto. Andre Pallante (6-8, 4.13) and Lance Lynn (6-4, 3.96) are scheduled to start the first two games of the following series against the Pittsburgh Pirates next week in St. Louis.
Left-hander Steven Matz will remain available to pitch out of the bullpen for the time being.
"For this time through, we'd like to give Lance another time on the bump and see how he comes out of that," Marmol said. "With Pallante, I just feel like he's been one of most consistent guys. Continuing to see that and develop that is important for him and the org. So that puts Matz in the pen for the time being, but if anything were to happen we've got a pretty good weapon that we can insert."
The Cardinals currently have Gray, Mikolas, Fedde and Matz under contract for next season. Pallante, who has not reached arbitration eligibility yet, is under team control. Lynn and Gibson have club options for 2025.
Marmol was quick to shoot down any suggestion that Matz's placement in the bullpen had any implications for the future.
"It's just what's needed at the moment," Marmol said.
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