DISNEY WORLD — After his team’s second drubbing in as many games, manager Tony La Russa called lefty reliever Ron Flores into his office to brush off a bad afternoon but also to tell him he’ll have a new locker when he returns to Jupiter.

Flores was one of three players reassigned after Sunday’s 12-5 loss to Atlanta, and the lefty was the only pitcher. In one inning of work, Flores walked the bases loaded and allowed three runs (all earned) before getting three outs. He was hardly alone in the miserable-inning column. Before him, closer Jason Isringhausen and sudden starter Clayton Mortensen also allowed three runs each (all earned), and really only submariner Hugo Castellanos escaped a bruising at Champion Stadium.

It’s been that kind of weekend for the Cardinals.

“You mean if we had lost 2-1 twice, and then it would get under my skin beccause we didn’t score enough runs?” La Russa said, tersely, when asked about the 32 runs allowed total in two games. “Just spring training results. We haven’t pitched well. Some cases where guys need to get their work and it’s important to get their work, like Izzy and (Ryan Franklin). Other cases, guys need to make an impression.”

That was Flores’ situation.

Reassigning Randy’s brother to the minor-league camp leaves the Cardinals with only two lefties in the major-league clubhouse, Randy Flores and last-minute addition Ron Villone. Depth is thin with Tyler Johnson recovering, and the Cardinals could be in the market for a lefthanded reliever when the market offers one.

In the meantime, there’s a widespread “blech” that is clinging to many facets of the team, almost all really except the percolating competition in the outfield.

(Brian Barton coming on swiftly … )

The Cardinals did not commit any errors that found their way to the scoreboard Sunday, but there were a few plays that had to be made. And there’s the pitching. In the past 17 innings against the LA Dodgers and Braves, the Cardinals have allowed 33 hits, 13 extra-bases hits, more walks (13) than strikeouts (12) and the 32 runs.

Thing is: It could have been worse.

The Dodgers stranded 18 runners Saturday; the Braves left nine Sunday.

“That was just kind of a day that if you didn’t get the out to put them away you ended up getting burned,” La Russa said. ”And we did that two or three times to give them another chance and every time it hurt us.”

He said that Saturday. Though it could very well have been Sunday, too.

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The other reassignments Sunday after the loss were INF Brian Barden and OF Amaury Marti. Barden will continue playing a bunch of different infield spots for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate. Depending on the major-league roster shakedown, Barden could be the Redbirds’ starting shortstop. On Marti, La Russa said:

“What he’s got to do is he needs to go down to that Triple-A club and have a big productive year so he can get back to the big leagues. There’s a chance he’ll be in our uniform again sometime before the end of spring training. But it’s more important for him to go down there and work and do real well.”

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The DH is dead. R.I.P. 3-9-2008. Juan Gonzalez, if not a pinch hitter, will have to play in the field to get his at-bats now and catch up in the aforementioned scramble for outfield innings.

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One of the things Clayton Mortensen said was a difference between his junior year — when he didn’t pitch well enough to get drafted — and his senior year, when he was drafted by the Cardinals quite high, was how he handled crowds. He was a little shellshocked in his early starts in front of college crowds. He had to learn how to stay poised and unshakeable.

(”Like a duck,” as one of my editors recently said. Water-off-the-back stuff.)

So, naturally, Mortensen’s first 1 o’clock start in his first big-league camp comes with only a bus ride’s worth of notice and in front of one of the largest crowds in this stadium’s history. Go get ‘em, kid.

Mortensen allowed three runs in his first inning. The first two hits the Braves got off the righthander were groundballs through holes. Fine. He’s a power-sinker specialist and that’s going to happen. But two walks hurt, a roped single hurt, and quickly Atlanta had turned five base runners and a steal into a sacrifice fly and three runs. Mortensen recovered for a perfect third in front of the 11,259 fans, the ninth-largest crowd in 10 years of Disney’s ballpark.

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Drafted in the fifth round out of UC-Santa Barbara, Skip Schumaker came to the Cardinals as a shortstop. When he tried out for the team in a pre-draft workout at old Busch Stadium, he played shortstop. That didn’t last.

With the exception of a few moments playing third base — “We were really hit with injuries,” he said — the lefthanded-hitting Schumaker kept his cannon arm in the outfield and has excelled at all three positions. That’s why this annual rumble of speculation he should get a spin at second base for the Cardinals caused him to chuckle.

“The last time I took a groundball was 2000,” he said. “One that I took seriously.”  

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Blake Hawksworth continues to intrigue and baffle the Cardinals, sometimes all within one outing. As mentioned here yesterday, Hawksworth’s line was a bit misleading from Saturday’s game against the Dodgers. Thumped early, he recovered to strike out five of the final six batters he faced. He described what essentially amounts to a between-inning epiphany.

“I had to refocus myself mentally, that’s really what it comes down to with me,” Hawksworth said. “You just reach a point where you stop worrying. You just have to say, Let’s let this go, all out, and see what happens.”

Hawksworth was once one of the Cardinals’ premium prospects, and since he’s been jostled by injuries and inconsistencies. He seemed to have recovered his form in 2006, when he made 27 starts and went 11-4 at two levels. But in Triple-A last summer, he tumbled to a 4-13 record and 5.28 ERA.

There are times when he still appears tentative.

Turns out there may be a reason. Hawksworth said he finished last season on a pitch count, limited to about 80 pitches a start. Since massive shoulder surgery, Hawksworth hasn’t entirely shaken the sensation of injury. He gets fine with his pitches, trying to place them ever so carefully on the edges. He gets tentative. And only seems  to do so in games.

Hawksworth came into spring training in noticeably better/stronger shape and his bullpens and batting practice throws were enough to generate interest. Again.

His games, however, embody his career. Erratic, with flashes of promise. He has allowed eight runs off 10 hits in three innings. Opponents have 13 base runners against him — or slightly more than 4.00 per inning (a WHIP that equals a RUN, always trouble). Yet, he spoke to manager Chris Maloney between his innings and came out gunning.

“Everything for me comes back to being set mentally,” Hawksworth said. “I have to know I don’t need to sacrifice my stuff for location, and that I can go out and attack.”

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Sidney Ponson signed. Elsewhere.

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Flashed on the scoreboard, a fun fact from a Disney-fried spring training game, where there are two tiers of stands, ESPN logos galore, and fireworks to punctuate every home run and anthem: John Dillinger played professional baseball. Found one bio that claimed he asked to be transferred to a different prison because it had a better baseball team.

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With Chris Duncan sidelined with a back sprain for the time being, Joe Mather continues to expand his resume with play at first base. Mather finished the game there Sunday, making a snazzy spear of a line drive and also scooping several grounders. Before the game, Mather took groundballs at third base.

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New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden has a blunt take on the Cardinals’ chances this season, from Juan Gonzalez to the famed double-leadoff that made its spring debut Sunday. …  Palm Beach Post columnist Greg Stoda caught Bob Gibson as he was dressing to leave the ballpark Saturday and learned a little bit about how the Cardinals’ Hall of Famer became an intimidating presence. The last anecdote in the column comes from Joe Torre’s press chat Saturday, and recalls when Gibson was his pitching coach and Torre wondered if the middle-aged Gibson could start Atlanta that day. Torre said owner Ted Turner, his wheels spinning, and a quick response to the offhanded wish.

“Can we?”

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