TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals showed a pulse offensively Tuesday night in Florida, but it still wasn’t enough as they failed to score more than three runs for the 12th time in 16 games. They have produced the fewest runs and the fewest baserunners in baseball since the beginning of May. They have the lowest on-base percentage (.276) this month in the National League.

But, hey, they conjured their fourth three-run inning in the past 26 games.

Only by virtue of a “tied-for-first” run of excellence by the starting rotation have the Cardinals remained in second place in the NL Central. Throughout the past month of offensive absence, the Cardinals and manager Tony La Russa have talked about the lineup’s issues as if they were passing plague, a slump that got its roots in deep but would move on eventually like any other slump. Health would help, for example. They’ve unpacked some of the oldies-but-goodies cliches like improving at-bats, grinding out at-bats, “getting our work in” and short-term memories. One Cardinal broke from the standards and asked sternly and rhetorically, wasn’t this the highest-scoring offense in April (true, league-best 133 runs)? Didn’t it hit well in April (true, second-best slugging in NL)? Well then, he concluded, it will again.

But when is a slump more than a slump? When is a struggle not a struggle but a truth?

At some point, and it may have already passed, the Cardinals are no longer a team struggling to score runs, they are a team that struggles to score runs. It’s no longer a slump, it’s an identity.

“I say ’struggles’ because I’m confident the way we’re working it and going about it we’ll come out of it,”  La Russa said at the end of the home stand this past week. “We can set it straight tomorrow and start producing better.”

One casualty of the offensive brownout is a good place to start the 10@10 …

1. Albert Pujols went 0-for-4 on Tuesday in Florida, giving him four consecutive hitless games, a rarity in his career. Pujols has one hit in his previous 18 at-bats, a home run against Colorado. In the four-game series against the Rockies, Pujols went 1-for-14, or .071. Only once in his career has he had a series where he had a worse batting average. In 2003, he went 0-for-12 against Philadelphia. According to a streak search on Baseball-Reference.com, this is only the fourth four-game hitless streak of Pujols’ career. It happened previously in June 2008, May 2007 and September 2001. In those streaks he was 0-for-11, 0-for-13 and 0-for-14, respectively. He enters tonight’s game 0-for-14 in those four games.

2. Several days ago, manager Tony La Russa chuckled as he was reminded that the media had not heard some of his signature phrases for several days. Even given the chance a few weeks ago to say Chris Carpenter was “tied for first” when it came to great pitchers he’s had, La Russa avoided his calling card cliche. John Mozeliak, earlier this month, said he was going to stop using some of the catchphrases that have been burned onto his resume (something about fruit, taken out of context), and then this week owner Bill DeWitt Jr. told Rick Hummel that one of the rallying cries of Cardinal Nation — “dry powder” — was now a four-letter word. It’s as if Aerosmith stopped playing “Walk This Way” at concerts. Where’s the sing-a-long? The Cardinals are trying to retire their greatest hits. And that’s the subject of today’s poll:

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3. By selecting Shelby Miller with the 19th overall pick in yesterday’s first round of the 2009 Draft, the Cardinals broke from many of their usual approaches to the draft. He is the first high school pitcher the club has taken since 1991 … but that really doesn’t tell the whole story. In 1991, the Cardinals had three first-round picks and the third was use on Brian Barber, a prep pitcher out of Orlando, Fla. (The first two were Dmitri Young and — Ron Jacober’s favorite baseball card — Allen Watson.) The last time the Cardinals took a pitcher with their first (and only) pick in the first round was way back in 1980. They selected Don Collins, a righthander from Ferguson High in Newport News, Va., with the 15th overall pick. He got to High-A. Miller won’t settle for that.

“I don’t know a whole lot about St. Louis, but I’m willing to learn as much as I can,” Miller said in his fantastic first impression with the local media. “I see myself playing for the Cardinals in about 2-3 years. I’m going to get there as quick as i can and make a name for myself.”

ESPN.com’s Keith Law raved about the Cardinals’ pick, calling Miller an arm “you typically don’t get … at 19.”

4. While the pick of Miller was telling enough, the real theme of Day 1 for the Cardinals in the draft wasn’t the draft at all. It was development. We’re all guilty of putting so much emphasis on the scouting and drafting of players that we ignore the role development has in getting draft players to the majors. It’s like we pay attention to the seed and the flower and forget the watering and nurturing in between. Clearly, the Boston Red Sox are among the best at both identifying prospects and then developing them into players. The Cardinals have developed guys like Jason Motte and Mitchell Boggs, though key members of their development (like Mark Riggins) are now longer with the club.  … Well, the 2009 draft — at least Day 1 of it — puts the emphasis on two things: Their ability to sign Miller and their ability to develop obvious and (in the case of the next two picks) perceived latent talent. The onus will be on the coaches, not just the scouts. And that should have been part of the discussion all along. VP/Farm Director Jeff Luhnow said as much late Tuesday night at Busch Stadium.

“I feel like this was the year we could take some younger kids and some higher risks,” Luhnow said. “And let our system and our own people do what they do best — which is to take raw material that has a really high upside and turn it into a finished product.”

5. In one of the most assertive rejections of PED accusations we’ve seen outside of a lying finger wagging in front of Congress, Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Raul Ibanez verbally blasted a blogger, given platform in a newspaper column, who speculated that the slugger’s tremendous start was explained pharmaceutically. Ibanez, as quoted in this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer, described it as slander, as defaming and invited testing of any type to prove that he’s clean. It echoed in some ways Pujols putting his faith on the line when claiming he’s clean and that his numbers, while existing in the hazy era of Syringe Sluggers, are achieved naturally through work. Guess such comments are becoming a sign of the times. Ibanez also put something on the line, per Jim Salisbury:

“You can have my urine, my hair, my blood, my stool - anything you can test. I’ll give you back every dime I’ve ever made (if the test is positive). I’ll put that up against the jobs of anyone who writes this stuff. Make them accountable. There should be more credibility than some 42-year-old blogger typing in his mother’s basement. It demeans everything you’ve done with one stroke of the pen. Nobody is above the testing policy. We’ve seen that.”

6. According to Baseball-Reference.com, the time it takes for a draft pick to steep in the minors and emerge in the majors has increased with each passing decade. In the 1970s it was 3.6 years in the minors and players wree 23.0 years old when they arrived. In the 1980s it was 4.1 and 24.1 years old, and in 1990s it s 4.5 and 24.3 years old. Economics has tilted the game younger in recent years, with Tampa Bay Rays players like David Price and Evan Longoria making their debuts within two seasons of their draft, and four players from the 2008 draft having already arrived in the majors (though not yet to stay). With the draft still going on today, an interesting way to look at the many varied paths a player takes from draft to the majors — and the crapshoot science of drafting in general — check out the draft history of the 13 players who played for the Cardinals on Tuesday night in Florida.

• Skip Schumaker … 5th round, 2001 (by Cardinals)
• Chris Duncan … 46th overall, 1999 (by Cardinals)
• Albert Pujols … 13th round, 1999 (by Cardinals)
• Colby Rasmus … 28th overall, 2005 (by Cardinals)
• Rick Ankiel … 2nd round, 1997 (by Cardinals)
• Yadier Molina … 4th round, 2000 (by Cardinals)
• Tyler Greene … 30th overall, 2005 (by Cardinals)
• Chris Carpenter … 15th overall, 1993 (by Toronto)
• Ryan Ludwick … 2nd round, 1999 (by Oakland)
• Kyle McClellan … 25th round, 2002 (by Cardinals)
• Nick Stavinoha … 7th round, 2005 (by Cardinals)
• Jason Motte … 19th round, 2003 (by Cardinals)
• Brendan Ryan … 7th round, 2003 (by Cardinals)

7. FARMNIK REPORT: Second baseman Jarrett Hoffpauir homered twice and went 2-for-4 with five RBIs — all five of the runs scored by his team — for Class AAA Memphis on Thursday. He has three home runs in his previous seven at-bats. … The New Orleans Zephyrs (nee Denver) trounced the Memphis Redbirds, 9-5. The Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate had two errors and allowed three unearned runs. Lefty Evan MacLane allowed four runs (two earned) on seven hits and one walk in seven innings. He also struck out four. … Signed as an undrafted free agent a year ago, Jarred Bogany came out of college and is already at a full-season club, pushed to Low-A Quad Cities. He had three hits Tuesday and is 10-for-20 in his previous five games. Bogany is hitting .314, and one his hits Tuesday was a solo home run, his first of the season. … Alex Castellanos went 2-for-5 with a couple RBIs and a home run as Quad Cities avoided a sweep with a 7-3 victory. … High-A Palm Beach lost, 3-1. Two of the runs allowed were unearned as the PB-Cards committed two errors. Tommy Pham went 1-for-4 with a run-scoring double. Jermaine Curtis, the leadoff hitter, has cooled considerably from his start to the season. He went 1-for-3, but is batting just .183 since May 1. … Blake King had one of the errors — on a pickoff throw — but he compensated with 3 1/3 scoreless innings. He struck out seven and walked just two. Mickey Mantle’s kin dropped his ERA to 1.08 as a reliever for the PB-Cards.

8. Cardinals shortstop Khalil Greene had an eventful night during his second game on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Memphis. Greene started at short, batted sixth and went 3-for-4 with a double and a couple runs scored. He also committed two errors in the field — both fielding errors. Greene told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that he was eager to get on the field and find “a little less drama.” The shortstop, who is on the major-league disabled list with social anxiety disorder, has a lot of interesting things to say about his game and about his goals in Memphis.

9. And while we’re talking about cliches, here’s a quick “hat tip” to the readers, longtime and new, of the blog here. During the rapid-blogging coverage from the draft last night, Bird Land logged its 10,000th comment since the Post-Dispatch’s redesign. (Not since the founding of the blog in 2005.) Only 9,976 of them were about the pitcher batting eighth. Thanks to all.

10. A hat tip to Deadspin.com founder Will Leitch who fired up a link this morning on his Twitter feed to the monster movie posters being used to promote a Japanese professional baseball team. The Chiba Lotte Marines are using the posters to announce forthcoming games, and players and managers are featured in various heroic poses. Seems like a marketing tool that would fit almost any ball club. Think about Albert Pujols standing atop the Arch, staring down an advancing Kaiju like Mothra, or Chris Carpenter brandishing a fastball like this:

An example of the monster movie posters a Japanese baseball team — the Chiba Lotte Marines — is using. (Source: Pink Tentacle)

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