The Cardinals outfielder is working his way back![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/01kp1y7hkwfz06bmb32d.jpg\" "\\"St.")
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Sep 23, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; St. Louis Cardinals left fielder Lars Nootbaar (21) stands at bat against the San Francisco Giants during the first inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Eakin Howard-Imagn Images | Eakin Howard-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
“Lars Nootbaar is at Busch this weekend continuing his running progression,” Jones wrote. “Sprinting, changing direction, opening hips, all in spikes. Not hitting live pitching yet but progressing well. Hope remains that he\u2019ll come off the IL very close to his eligible date.”<\/p>\n
Nootbaar was placed on the 60-Day Injured List after undergoing surgery on both of his heels to correct Haglund\u2019s deformities. The Cardinals’ first game of the season was on March 26 against the Tampa Bay Rays. That means that the earliest that Nootbaar would be eligible to return from the Injured List would be towards the end of May. <\/p>\n
Now, we’re still over one month away from the end of May. So, don’t get your hopes up yet, Cardinals fans. But it does sound like Nootbaar is progressing to the point that he could be ready to roll right around the time that he’s eligible to come off the Injured List. After the two losses against Boston, the Cardinals are 8-7 on the season. They have been better than many expected them to be, despite the tough series overall against Boston. <\/p>\n
When Nootbaar is back in the lineup, they will be a better team overall. Left field has been a bit of a struggle for St. Louis so far this season. Nathan Church has struggled offensively this season. Church is slashing .152\/.200\/.242 in 13 games played. Jos\u00e9 Ferm\u00edn is slashing .250\/.231\/.250 in five games<\/a> played. Thomas Saggese is slashing .243\/.317\/.297 in 11 games played<\/a>. Saggese and Ferm\u00edn can play all over the field, but Nootbaar clearly will be an upgrade when he’s ready to roll. Fortunately, it sounds like we could see him when he’s eligible at the end of his 60-day stint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Cardinals dropped two of three games against the Boston Red Sox throughout the weekend, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-674407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116394293586497677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}