All smiles as Lars Nootbaar breaks out of his slump to power up the Cardinals' lineup

From the first game of the 2025 season until now, Lars Nootbaar has been setting the tone for the St. Louis Cardinals at the top of their lineup, and as the Cardinals have soared in the standings as we approach the end of May, it is hard not to notice how Nootbaar's own performance seems to drive how the team plays any given day.

Get this: Among Cardinals qualified hitters, Nootbaar has the best SLG (.538), OPS (.949), most RBI (24), home runs (7), walks (20), and runs scored (25) in games the Cardinals have won this year. In games the Cardinals lose, Nootbaar has the lowest AVG (.174), SLG (.250), and OPS (.526), with also the fewest RBIs (3) out of their qualified hitters as well. When Nootbaar is having a good day, the Cardinals have a good day. When Nootbaar is struggling at the plate, it feels like the Cardinals have a very difficult time scoring runs as well.

The Cardinals' lineup performs at its best when Lars Nootbaar is.

Nootbaar broke out of a recent rough patch at the plate in a big way on Tuesday, going 3-4 with a home run, two RBIs, two runs scored, and a walk to ignite the Cardinals' offense to a 7-4 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. In his last eight games prior to Tuesday, Nootbaar was slashing .125/.171/.156, resulting in a .328 OPS and -8 wRC+ over that stretch. He scored just three times over that stretch and drove in only one run. The Cardinals, meanwhile, also went through a significant slump as an offense, ranking in the bottom five teams in baseball in wRC+ (77) over that stretch of games.

The groundwork was laid for this during their opening series against the Minnesota Twins, and the proof has been in the pudding as the year has gone on. The Cardinals placed Nootbaar in the leadoff spot for a reason: He is the straw that stirs the drink. He's an igniter. When Nootbaar is on, he rattles opposing pitchers, drives up pitch counts, and is the perfect blend of an on-base machine to put runners on base for the middle of the order while doing damage when the bottom of the order gets going as well.

With how manager Oliver Marmol has structured the Cardinals' lineup this year, Nootbaar's spot in the lineup finds itself at the center of the action. Depending on the at-bat, Nootbaar may be setting the table for Masyn Winn, Brendan Donovan, Willson Contreras, and Ivan Herrera, or could be looking to drive in Jordan Walker and Victor Scott. And in some situations, he's doing a bit of both.

It's why I have a hard time seeing a scenario where the Cardinals move away from Nootbaar as their leadoff man anytime soon. They have other guys who would do a great job in that spot, like Donovan, Herrera, Scott, and Winn, but the blend of on-base skills, patience, and damage that Nootbaar can do just works together so well at the top of the Cardinals' lineup.

There will be stretches he goes cold this year; that's the game. Baseball is a series of streaks and slumps. The best players can neutralize those slumps, limiting how deep they go and the length of time they are in them. While Nootbaar's -8 wRC+ was about as bad of a slump as a player can be in, he did limit it to just about a week of baseball. Prior to that slump, Nootbaar was slashing .260/.374/.434 on the season, amounting to an .807 OPS and 129 wRC+. That's awesome production that the Cardinals are hoping will continue all season long!

Nootbaar's wRC+ on the season now sits at 117, just a tick above his career average, but assuming he's getting back to himself at the plate, that should rise north of 120 before too long.

The Cardinals' lineup is deep with players who can make a difference on any given night. While Ivan Herrera and Brendan Donovan have been the Cardinals' best hitters this year, it's hard to overstate the importance of Nootbaar's role in this lineup. When he is clicking, things seem to roll, and the Cardinals would love nothing more than for Tuesday's big game to be a sign of normalcy returning for Nootbaar as we close out the month of May.