Watch: Cardinals' Lars NootBaar Collapses At Bat After Taking Arguably One Of The Worst Nut Shots Of All Time

Source - Painful night at the ballpark for Lars Nootbaar ... the St. Louis Cardinals star foul-tipped a ball so hard into his man region -- he had to leave the game.

The incident happened in the fifth inning of the Red Birds' Wednesday night tilt with the Oakland A's ... when Nootbaar was trying to send a changeup over the outfield wall.

Instead, however, his bat barely got a piece of the baseball as it crossed the dish ... and it, unfortunately, bounced off the ground and ricocheted right into his junk.

At first, the game's announcers believed it had smacked off one of his shins -- but when the replays showed it went directly into his family jewels ... they knew exactly what was going down.

You ever been hit so hard in the nuts everyone around you goes silent in solidarity? Whatever competition or argument or fight is going on just stops dead in its tracks? Then, usually the person closest to you, slowly approaches and whispers "are you okay" as if you've just loved a loved one?...

That's what happened to old Larsey. Only he isn't in the driveway with his friends, he's playing major league baseball in front of 46,000 fans. Poor thing. He'll be fine (I hope) but I can't even imagine what was going through his head when he got hit. Probably nothing. Probably all he could do is focus on the pain and ride out the storm. 

I'd screen grab the shot to show you where the ball hit, but it happened so fast the ball is blurry. Watch the clip again if you don't know what I'm talking about. The cardinals removed him from the game after he got to his feet with "lower abdomen contusion." That's pretty much all I have to say about this one. Thoughts and prayers to both Lars and his testicles. Here's to speedy recovery. Thanks for reading.