ST. LOUIS -- Face down in the dirt and clutching his back because of the searing pain in his left kidney area after falling into the arm rail of a Busch Stadium seat, Cardinals superstar Nolan Arenado had no time to revel in one of the best defensive plays of his career because he was literally gasping for air and struggling to breathe.
Ironically, Arenado’s sacrificing of his body to catch a foul popup near the third-base seats in the ninth inning had the same effect on the Busch Stadium crowd of 36,437. The 10-time Gold Glove winner took the breath away from the fans -- and deflated the Arizona Diamondbacks -- upon making a tumbling catch, sacrificing his body and taking a blow to the lower back that knocked the wind out of his lungs.
“It was pretty bad, and I was having trouble breathing there for a little while, so that was pretty tough,” said Arenado, who iced and received therapy on the injured area for nearly a half hour following the Cardinals’ 4-3 victory over the D-backs on Sunday. “I’ve never really felt that [kind of pain] before, and that was tough. But [the pain] went away, thank God.”
Even after falling into the netting, taking the blow to his back and momentarily struggling to breathe, Arenado still had the will to fight to stay in the game. Arenado wanted to see through the Cardinals’ victory and their sweep of the D-backs. When Cardinals reliever Phil Maton fanned Lourdes Gurriel Jr. a batter later to end the game, no one was happier than Arenado, who gingerly hobbled off the field following the Cardinals’ 16th win in the past 20 games.
“I lost my breath for about a minute, and I had never felt that before,” Arenado said. “Once I got my breath back, I felt like I was OK. You know, I’m still a little bit sore.”
The heroes were aplenty on Sunday for a Cardinals club that swept their fourth opponent of 2025. Victor Scott II came through in the seventh with a hard-hit single to plate Jordan Walker for the eventual game-winning run. Starter Sonny Gray limited the D-backs to three runs over six innings despite not having his best stuff, and Maton closed out the white-knuckle ninth with closer Ryan Helsley unavailable after pitching the previous two days.
Still, it was Arenado who rightly garnered most of the praise in the joyous postgame clubhouse after making another game-saving play. On Friday, he beat the D-backs with a three-run triple, and it was his diving stop in the ninth inning that helped to save Saturday’s win. However, his running catch and spill into the seats on Sunday will likely ascend to a spot somewhere near the top of a list of highlights longer than his wingspan.
“He’s definitely a Hall of Famer, one of the best third basemen to ever play the game and he continues to show that,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “When you get to manage those types of guys … [The] ’22 [season] was so much fun because of [Albert Pujols]. You rarely pick your head up enough, but I was able to enjoy it from time to time, especially with those [Pujols] at-bats.
“You take a step back from time to time and admire that [Arenado] is an incredible defender and a really good player.”
On a recent flight, Lars Nootbaar said Cardinals players were playfully comparing their accomplishments compared to those of Arenado. His eight All-Star appearances are just two shy of the total for Willson Contreras (3), Gray (3), Miles Mikolas (2) and Helsley (2) combined. As for the 10 Gold Gloves in his first 10 MLB seasons, only Ichiro Suzuki can match that accomplishment in AL/NL history.
“I think without him showing, sacrificing and doing what he’s doing, I don’t know that we are where we are,” Gray said of Arenado.
Arenado told MLB.com that potentially winning an 11th Gold Glove might eclipse the joy of winning his first 10.
“That would mean a lot and I would love to win it again,” Arenado said. “It would probably be the most special one if I can get that [Gold Glove] back again.”
Arenado’s greatness was so radiant on Sunday that he even drew praise from a defeated D-backs dugout.
“I respect Nolan Arenado so much, and I've seen him do it at a high level for a very long time,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “He's hungry, he's prepared, he's tough, he's always engaged.”