(BYE REDBIRDS BYE)—The Cardinals have welcomed back Noot and Nathan to the big nest and have kicked Victor Scott II down to Memphis after low-offensive production in the first couple of months of the season. Nathan Church came off the DL for last night’s game. Lars Nootbar had a solid outing in his return after months of recovery from heel surgery.
The moves can set up an outfield of Church in left, Jordan Walker in center and Nootbar in right. That leaves Nelson Velasquez to rotate in on offense and provide power off the bench.
Scott still isn’t showing he can consistently hit big league pitching. He was sent down with a .194 average, two homers and nine RBIs. Church, on the other hand, has played 45 games with five homers, 18 RBIs and a .247 average.
Nootbar returned Sunday with a two-run game-winning homer against the Reds.
(ROYAL PAINS)—Two key members of the Kansas City Royals are hurting and as this is written, their reappearance in the lineup is uncertain.
Bobby Witt has a right knee that is giving him more trouble as the season wears on. He left the field om the Seventh inning Sunday. Manager Matt Quatraro says its “nothing acute” but it got worse as the game wore on. Witt has not missed a game this year.
Royals catcher Salvador Perez has missed the last couple of game after getting hit by a pitch on his right thumb. Outfielder Jac Caglianone left the game with a sore shoulder after hitting the wall. Maikel Garcia will move to shortstop if Witt spend some time off the field. The Royals have rookie Carter Jensen ready to go behind the plate if needed. He’s played 34 games there this year, five more than Perez, who has spent some time at first base.
Although Perez’s overall batting performance is down this year, he and Witt are tied for the team lead in homers with nine. He’s also just five home runs behind the team record for career homers, now held by George Brette, who had 317.
On the good news side, there’s Kris Bubic who began his rehab assignment today in Omaha. He’s been on the 15-day DL with left elbow soreness. He had Tommy John surgery three years ago and missed the last half of last year with a rotator cuff strain. He had a pretty good season going with a 4.11 ERA and 51 strikeouts in 50.1 innings. He had four quality starts in nine outings.
(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs are bring back a former teammate who might be able to help a young cornerback corps. NFL Insider reports the chiefs have signed L’Jarrius Snead to a one-year, potential five-million dollar contract.
The Chiefs cornerback group going into fall camp is their number eight overall draftee Mansoor DeLane, holdover Nohl Williams, and free agent Kader Kahou
The Chiefs traded Snead to the Tennessee Titans in 2024. The Titans signed him for four years, $76 million but he was in only a dozen games in the two seans there and was released in the offseason. He intercepted ten passes in his four years with the Chiefs and was on two Super Bowl winning teams.
(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks have fallen out of the UFL playoffs in the first round, falling to the Louisville Kings, arguably the hottest team in the league, or one of them. Louisville lost its first three games and has won seven of eight since then, the latest being 29-20.
The win puts the Kings in the United Bowl, the league championship game, against the DC Defenders. Louisville blasted one of the league’s best defenses with two touchdown runs of 50 yards or more. It is the third straight year the Battlehawks have lost a chance to play for the league championship.
St. Louis won the statistical game, with double the Louisville first downs (22-11), ran 75 plays to the Louisville’s 42. But their offense, one of the league’s weakest, didn’t get the ball across the goal line enough. They led 20-18 going into the last quarter.
But Louisville got the touchdown and then kicker Tanner Brown nailed down the win with a 63 yard field goal. The UFL gives field goals longer than 60 yards four points.
St. Louis finishes the year 6-5.
A different kind of running game:
(INDYCAR)—IndyCar reached the halfway mark of its18-race season and the halfway point of its six-race schedule for ovals just before midnight at World Wide Raceway, just across the river from St. Louis. The race was delayed twice—almost an hour, total, for brief sprinkles of rain.
The Track is a friendly place for Penske driver Josef Newgarden, who won there for the sixth time in eleven races at the track Sunday night. It’s his second win this year.
Newgarden is IndyCar’s ovalmeister, with fifteen of his 34 career wins coming on ovals, two of them at the Indianapolis 500. He still wears a fiberglass boot because of a leg injury suffered in this year’s 500, although he takes it off for driving.
He finished about seven-tenths of a second ahead of Marcus Ericsson (on the left on the podium) and almost two seconds ahead of Christian Rasmussen (right). The finishes by Ericsson and Rasmussen are their bests this year.
Ericsson led more than twice as many laps as any other driver—Newgarden—114-53 of the 260 laps on the mile and a half track. But it was Rasmussen that Newgarden had to get past after close racing for several laps after the last stoppage.
McLaughlin made a spirited charge toward the front on the restart on Lap 234, climbing from ninth to fifth in just four laps. But the Kiwi and the other cars that pitted for tires didn’t have enough traction from the fresher rubber or speed to challenge the top four down the stretch.
The race was hotly contested all night long with 268 passes for position in he 260 laps, a track record.
Points leader Alex Palou started on pole for the fourth straight race but tried to stretch his fuel one lap too far. He coasted into his pits with a dead engine that then refused to re-fire. He finished 17th, two laps down but he still has a substantial lead on Kyle Kirkwood, who finished sixth.
Newgarden’s win puts him into a ninth-place tie with Al Unser Jr., on the all-time Indycar wins list. A. J. Foyt is number one with 67, eight more than Scott Dixon, who finished 12th Sunday night.
(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin’s 63rd career win—the second time in two weeks that he’s gone from last to first—was emotional one because it lifted him into a ninth place on the all-times Cup wins list with Kyle Busch. His fourth win of the year ended with him turning a victory lap while holding a black flag with the number 18 on it—-Busch’s number for most of his racing career before his death a couple of weeks ago. Hamlin and Busch had been teammates at one time.
Hamlin had the top qualifying speed but had to start last among the 37 cars because his team made some adjustments in his car after qualifying.
Points leader Tyler Reddick failed to finish and leads Hamlin by only 52 points now.
The race had eleven caution flags, a race record.
(Photo credit: Bob Priddy)