HOUSTON — St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Mark DeRosa didn’t see his first hit for his new team as a relief. He described it as progress.

In DeRosa’s first at-bat Monday night at Minute Maid Park, he stung a single to left field and a couple at-bats later he had his second hit of the game and his second hit as a Redbird. Like the first one, DeRosa’s hit went to the left side of the field, glancing off third baseman Geoff Blum for an infield hit. DeRosa is now 2-for-19 since the trade to the Cardinals, and each swing, as DeRosa said after the game, is a step forward because each swing is something new for him.

He’s never batted with a torn tendon sheath before. It’s a bit of a learning experience.

And it’s where today’s tightly wrapped 10@10 begins …

1. Asked DeRosa after the game what the sensation is like each night when he unwraps his mummified left wrist from its profoundly tight cage of tape. He it’s not taking off the tape from the wrist that is the oddest feeling. Swinging the bat is. At the point of contact, DeRosa describe, there is a new sensation that generates in his wrist. He said it’s like a pop, or — better yet — the way your knuckle feels when it cracks. Each time he makes contact it’s like cracking his knuckles. It’s just one of the things he has to get used to as he plays through the wrist injury. Said DeRosa: “Obviously there is still some serious work to be done. The more at-bats the more involved I’m getting in the game, the more I’m feeling comfortable.”

2. Colleague Joe Strauss, Mr. Nickname, was in the Memphis area yesterday to see Troy Glaus play left field, Khalil Greene play shortstop and AutoZone Park prepare for its biggest day of the year — why, today’s Dyar Miller bobblehead night. Strauss’ recount is available here, complete with picture. And, while manager Tony La Russa is tepid about when Glaus or Greene return, and the organization is conservative about when rookie David Freese could appear on the horizon, all of these third basemen making their toward St. Louis inspires today’s poll:

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3. On three plays in the fourth inning Monday, Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan flashed the kind of glove that has him in the conversation for the best defensive player at his position in the division and quite possibly the league. Ryan had two diving stops near or behind second base — one of which he couldn’t stop from becoming an infield hit and the other that he deftly flipped from his glove to Skip Schumaker for a double play. Ryan was all over his range Monday, tumbling for a foul popup behind third base and flinging throws from deep behind second base. It left manager Tony La Russa with one way to describe his young shortstop: “Whew.”

4. And Ryan’s play gives us reason to check in on the defensive plus/minus for the Cardinals around the diamond. The Plus/Minus is a system devised by John Dewan for his Fielding Bible, and what it essentially does is subject fielding percentage to, oh, logic. The +/- adds a plus for every play a players make outside of the “zone of his position” and tags the player with a minus for every play inside the zone he flubs. Albert Pujols, for example, has been a +/- leader for several years, and this season he’s a +5, which puts him in a tie with Ryan Howard a little bit down the list. A scan of the Cardinals at their positions and the leader at each of the spots in the field (courtesy Bill James Online):

1B Albert Pujols +5 … Travis Ishikawa, SF +12

2B Skip Schumaker minus-14 … Aaron Hill, TOR +21

3B Mark DeRosa minus-8 … Ryan Zimmerman, WSH +21

SS Brendan Ryan +10 … Marco Scutaro, TOR/Jack Wilson, PIT +22

LF Rick Ankiel +1 … Matt Holliday, OAK +22

CF Colby Rasmus +6 … Franklin Gutierrez, SEA +18

RF Ryan Ludwick minus-1 … Ichiro Suzuki, SEA +20

5. Mentioned in this morning’s paper that of all the pitchers in the division, Houston lefty Wandy Rodriguez is one of the few who has faced Albert Pujols in at least 15 at-bats and held him to a batting average of less than .200. In fact, Rodriguez was a list of one when it came to active pitchers who had that distinction until Monday when out of the wilderness popped LA Dodgers righthander Jason Schmidt. A scan of Pujols’ pitcher-batter splits reveals these Hates To Face as the few pitchers in baseball who he has 15+ ABs against and a batting average of less than .250. Let’s see Shaquille O’Neal pull off what these guys have:

• Brandon Webb … 5-for-23 (.217)
• Sean Marshall … 5-for-20 (.250)
• Jason Marquis … 5-for-20 (.250)
• Jim Brower … 4-for-16 (.250)
• Wandy Rodriguez … 2-for-20 (.150)
• Jason Schmidt … 2-for-17 (.118)
• Andy Pettitte … 5-for-23 (.217)

6. Kyle Lohse fell behind Lance Berkman and gave up a first-inning double to Houston’s first baseman. He walked Berkman in the fourth inning and set up Carlos Lee’s three-run home run — his fifth home off Lohse in his career and the most he has against any opposing pitcher. On both trips around the bases, Berkman moved gingerly. The fact that he legged out a double in the first inning said more about how far he hit it than how fast he got there. Berkman is playing with a strained left calf and word late last night out of the Houston clubhouse is that Berkman will have an MRI today to check the severity of the strain (say it with me now: a strain is a tear, a strain is a tear). Berkman, who has been “day to day” since straining the calf in LA last week, is two bases shy of tying Jose Cruz’s 2,842 total bases for third all-time in Astros’ history. Berkman told reporters it’s important for him to play in this kind of series.

7. Pujols’ intentional walk in fifth inning Monday was his 34th of the season, tying the franchise record he set last season. Won’t be long before he breaks it. Pujols already has the career record for intentional walks as a Cardinal with 188, more than 30 more than second-highest Ted Simmons’ 151. Four Cardinals have had more than 100 IBBs as a Cardinal. Joining Pujols and Simmons are Stan Musial (127) and Lou Brock (118). The top three single-season totals in Cardinals history belong to Pujols and four of the top five do as well. Mark McGwire’s 28 in 1998 and Musial’s 26 in 1958 are the only other Cardinals with a season total of 26 IBBs or more.

8. FARMNIK REPORT: Johnson City put up two six spots in the final two innings of its 13-1 rout Monday. Second baseman Ted Obregon went 3-for-4 with two home runs and three RBIs. Catcher Audry Perez also hit a home run and drove in five runs. … Another extra-inning game for Class AA Springfield. This one was lost, 5-4, in the 13th inning. Tyler Henley went 3-for-5. Eddie Degerman took the loss in extras, and his 1/3 inning ended a streak of seven consecutive scoreless innings pitched by the S-Cards’ bullpen. … Quad Cities managed one run total in a doubleheader dropped Monday. Travis Mitchell was the only QC River Bandit to have multiple hits in either game of the doubleheader. He had two in Game 1. Arquimedes Nieto continues to deserve better than his misleading 1-9 record. The World Baseball Classic pitcher threw five innings, allowed four hits and one run while striking out five. … Righthander Deryk Hooker continued to regain his career traction since his suspension for a positive drug test earlier this season. Hooker has appeared in six games (three starts) for rookie-league Batavia, and he’s got a 1-2, 3.51 line. Hooker struck out six and allowed four hits, two runs and one walk in five innings Monday.

9. Houston has won four consecutive games at home against the Cardinals, dating back to last season. They have also won nine of their previous 12 home games this season, and they’ve played .667 baseball at Minute Maid Park since June 1.

10. To help come down from that All-Star high — call it detox for a baseball-heaven overdose — here are a few articles that you may have missed in the whirlwind of coverage. The Wall Street Journal wrote that St. Louis is a “throwback” and that is it “steeped in tradition and respect for the game as no place else.” Good friend Benjamin Hochman, the fine NBA beat writer for the Denver Post and a fellow proud Times-Picayune alum, took a few inches in that paper to write a personal love letter to his hometown and his favorite baseball team. Got to see him at a game recently and he sat briefly with me and the boy wonder talking baseball as much as we talked New Orleans. Hard to put it better than he did, several times over, in his article, but I like this take on the double-helix of Mound City:

St. Louisans’ DNA is cross-stitched with red lace. There is a sophistication as well as a wry sense of humor to these fans, comparable to the theater crowd in Manhattan. But there’s also a folksiness, from embracing Mike Shannon’s country-fried broadcasting to guzzling Busch at Busch, even if you have a penchant for pinot noir.

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