TOWER GROVE — There were times during his endless rehab from relentless shoulder trouble that Mark Mulder pitched well enough to get through innings, to get by batters. But, he said there was never a moment, not in his final two seasons as a Cardinal, that he was certain he could pitch effectively.

“It was a tough situation … The whole time, all the way through the rehab and making those starts, I was not sure what I really had to get guys out,” Mulder said. “Coming back, never once did I sit there and say, It’s back. I feel normal. I never had things just click.”

The St. Louis Cardinals sent notification to Mulder’s representative within the past week that they would not pick up his $11-million option for 2009. Nobody on either side of the contract believed they would grab the option, and Mulder said the official alert came as somewhat of a relief. He’s free. Not just as a free agent, but free of a timetable, free of a schedule, free of a race to get ready for spring training.

He’s free when he’s still not sure just what it will take to get ready at all.

“It’s definitely on my mind, it’s definitely something I’m thinking about because the ultimate goal is to get back and pitch,” said Mulder (his stats). “I just don’t see that happening without a lot of work and a lot of time.”

Before: Mark Mulder delivers a pitch for Oakland. Notice the location of his elbow.

Mulder talked about the declined option when he called Wednesday afternoon from his home in Arizona. He’s working out with Danica Patrick’s husband, Paul Hospenthal, and he continues to explore new and different and creative treatments to “free up” his shoulder. He’s done some of what he called aggressive stretching to improve his flexibility. He’s done some yoga. In working out in Arizona, Mulder and his agent said he’s discovered just a chain of muscle tightness extending from his left shoulder down through his torso.

He’s working to tenderize those muscles so that he can get his arm to deliver like it used to.

So much of Mulder’s recovery over the past two seasons — while he was on a two-year, $13-million deal with the Cardinals — has been blanket-covered. His attempts to change his arm slot. His attempt to come back as a reliever. His 16 pitches in Philadelphia that ended his season when, once again, his shoulder buckled, his elbow collapsed and he couldn’t comfortably or effectively throw a pitch.

Pictures do better than words here.

After: Mulder delivers a pitch for the Cardinals, and again notice the elbow's location.

Embedded in this blog are two pictures — one of Mulder delivering a pitch while with Oakland, where he was an All-Star, part of the Big Three, and the winningest lefty in the game during his heyday there. The other picture is from his time as a Cardinal. I attempted to find photos that were snapped at about the same time in his delivery. The sag in his elbow is clear. That’s what he has been trying to describe for the past year or so, that feeling of the elbow buckling as he attempts to rotate his shoulder to the high point of the delivery.

Mulder had surgery in September 2006 to repair the labrum and rotator cuff in his left shoulder. (Though on the disabled list, he was with the team during the World Series run in 2006.) A year and three tattered starts after the first surgery, team doctors went back into the shoulder to shave the rotator cuff and address the area where the initial repair didn’t hold.

He’s started to remember things that happened then that were tell-tale signs he missed.

When he first returned from the shoulder surgery and started pitching in 2007, Mulder said he felt his shoulder tug on his neck, tug his head back and away from looking at the plate. There were times that he thought his delivery was yanking his head away from its focus. The muscles were so tight, he said, that it wasn’t allowing the head to look at the plate while his arm moved back. There were other little he recalls that may have been harbingers of trouble.

“I look back and know now that maybe things weren’t working,” Mulder said. “But I’m beyond looking back. I’m not saying what if anymore.”

It’s all about what’s next.

“I’m not with a team,” he said, “so it’s on my schedule.”

Mulder does not have a red-circled date on his calendar for when he’ll next pick up a baseball and try to make a pitch. It’s possible, his agent said, that mid-November is when Mulder could begin a throwing program. Mulder is of an opinion that he wants to be able to throw consistently from the mound — a few bullpens in a row — and may even be facing hitters before he entertains offers from teams. Some left the 2008 season with the sense that Mulder would be closed off to a return to St. Louis because of the past 2 1/2 seasons.

Not so, he said. He can separate the frustration from the location.

“I would have given up anything to have done well in that city and with that team,” Mulder said Wednesday. “I saw how it was. I saw why kind of teams we had there. It would have been so much fun, so incredible, to have been healthy and pitching like I’m capable. The last few years had nothing to do with the team or with the city. I wasn’t able to pitch for either of them. That’s disappointing.”

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