TOWER GROVE — The way Todd Wellemeyer describes it, he joined the St. Louis Cardinals at a vulnerable time in his career. He could not figure out why good stuff was getting bad results. He had just been hammered by the Detroit Tigers in consecutive games against them, and he was about to face the Tigers for a third time in four appearances after being a Cardinals’ waiver claim out of Kansas City’s pitching staff.

He thought the Tigers had his number. Wrong. They may have had his pitches.

“When I came in here,” Wellemeyer said during 2008’s spring training, gesturing around the room he shares with his Cardinals’ teammates, “half the clubhouse told me I was tipping my pitches.”

And there it was. Wellemeyer had really joined the club.

It has become a rite of passage for a new Cardinal pitcher: The Cleansing of the Tips. There are a handful of pitchers who have joined the Cardinals in recent seasons and after having some success — or, in a few cases, even before they have had their success — admit that they discovered, with the help of pitching coach Dave Duncan, manager Tony La Russa and Cardinals’ teammates, that they were … drum roll please … tipping pitches. John Smoltz is just the latest.

After the veteran’s nine-strikeout debut with the Cardinals on Sunday, one of the inevitable — and entirely plausible — explanations given for hims immediate success after sustained struggles in Boston was he tipped his pitches. From the stretch, Smoltz was doing something, most likely with his glove, to signal the hitter that an off-speed pitch was coming. Chris Carpenter helped identify it. Afterward, La Russa told reporters, per MLB.com: “It’s pretty clear he was tipping his pitches.”

The Cardinals make it a priority to pick up on these things.

Dating back to and beyond Jim Edmonds reading pitchers during live batting practice in spring training, Duncan has made a point of emphasis to eliminate tips. Duncan said the motivation for the awareness is simple: At some point a pitcher isn’t getting the production that matches the quality of his pitches. “That means there has to be another reason,” Duncan told me one spring training. Often, he and his players discover, that reason is a tell.

And, not to give away the theme here, is where today’s 10@10 begins …

1. Smoltz joins a laundry list of other pitchers who have had their tip deciphered and corrected by the Cardinals. That list includes three of the Cardinals’ current starters: Wellemeyer (on the DL), Joel Pineiro and Kyle Lohse. Pineiro was giving away his off-speed pitches with his glove. Lohse was tipping his off-speed pitches by flaring his glove. Wellemeyer would hold his glove lower toward his belt when he was going to throw a fastball. Some others who the Cardinals suggested were tipping pitches included Mike Maroth, who spent some time in the video room with Albert Pujols to learn how he was giving away stuff. “I know one thing,” La Russa said of the lefty. “They know what’s coming because we’re calling it from the bench.” Back in 2005, Matt Morris once explained away a funk by revealing that he, too, was tipping pitches with his glove position. He said it was something he had to fight a few times in his career. Even this past spring, Chris Perez learned he was tipping pitches. When he was about to throw a curveball, he looked into his glove at his grip. He didn’t check when he was throwing a fastball. Deadpanned Duncan one spring: “It makes a difference when the hitter doesn’t know what’s coming.”

2. Especially when it’s an effective split-finger fastball. Revisiting Smoltz’s debut one more time, it was striking how many times he fired a filthy split-finger fastball and one of the San Diego Padres swung over it. He had his signature pitch humming, and the numbers bear that out. The muscular stat web site FanGraphs allows us to compare the effectiveness of his pitches as a Cardinal (in five innings, granted) vs. what he did with the Red Sox this season. Leave it to you to decipher the tell in these statistics:

Fastball … in BOS: 42.1 % effectiveness, 91.3 mph … in STL: 41.3%, 92.1 mph

Slider … in BOS: 36.2% effectiveness, 84.6 mph … in STL: 40.0%, 84.5 mph

Splitter … in BOS: 9.7% effectiveness, 85.7 mph … in STL: 16.0%, 86.9 mph

3. On Bernie Miklasz’s radio show Monday, Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak made reference to shifting gears after the signing of Shelby Miller – who will be introduced to the media and Duncan today at Busch — and the courtship of Smoltz to the in-house stack of pending free agents. He said he would hoped to have some “dialogue”, at least, before the end of the season. (You can hear the interview by clicking the above link.) There are seven players of note who will be free agents at the end of the season, from breakout starter Joel Pineiro to backup catcher Jason LaRue. If we accept that outfielder Matt Holliday is the big free-agent fish that the Cardinals will attempt to hook and that the pursuit will likely seep into the offseason, then the remaining six pose an intriguing lineup of priorities for the Cardinals. That inspires two polls (take note of the verbs):

 Loading …

4. And, of course, the follow-up poll:

 Loading …

5. Adam Wainwright takes a second shot tonight at setting a new career high with a 15th victory of the season. That’s not the only number of note tonight. With six innings in tonight’s start, Wainwright will have 25 consecutive starts of at least six innings, and the only Cardinals in the past 55 years with longer streaks are Bob Gibson and Chris Carpenter. Wainwright also has allowed two earned runs or fewer in 11 consecutive starts. That ties Gibson for the second-longest streak by a Cardinal since 1954. In his game-changing MVP/Cy Young season of 1968, Gibson had 11 consecutive starts with two or fewer earned runs. The longest streak by a Cardinal in the past 50 years started in 1987 when John Tudor began 15 consecutive starts of two or fewer earned runs.

6. The Cardinals went 5-2 on the West Coast despite getting minimal, even lethargic, production from the middle of their order. The trio of righthanded batters that hit Nos. 3-4-5 in the Cardinals’ lineup went a combined 14-for-73 with three home runs and 10 RBIs. They hit .192 as a trio. Two of them can take comfort in a return home for a nine-game home stand that begins tonight at Busch Stadium:

No. 3 Albert Pujols … on trip: 4-for-24, 2 HR, 2 RBI … .167/.355/.417

@ home … .328 BA, .707 SLG

No. 4 Matt Holliday … on trip: 4-for-23, 1 HR, 5 RBI … .174/.355/.391

@ home … .472 BA, .830 SLG

No. 5 Ryan Ludwick … on trip: 6-for-26, 0 HR, 3 RBI … .231/.286/.231

@ home … .238 BA, .356 SLG

7. FARMNIK REPORT: Troy Glaus, starting at third base, was part of a power show for Class AAA Memphis on Monday. Glaus, the rehabbing former All-Star, hit the second home run of his rehab assignment, and his was one of five that the Redbirds hit in a 12-7 victory. Four of those home runs were hit in consecutive at-bats. All off former major-league relieve Armando Benitez. The others who hit homers included Nick Stavinoha, his 11th; Allen Craig, his 23rd; Mark Hamilton, his sixth; and Daniel Descalso, his second. The four batters who hit homers in consecutive at-abt were Glaus, Craig, Hamilton and Descalso. … Glaus went 1-for-4 with the homer, two runs scored, two walks and a strikeout. On his rehab assignment with Triple-A Memphis he’s hitting .194 overall. He’s batting .148 on his current rehab assignment. … Hamilton, one of the few lefthanded-power options the Cardinals have at their highest level, went 3-for-4. He’s hit 14 home runs total this season, split over two levels. … Jaime Garcia, who missed most of the season to recover from Tommy John surgery, got his first Triple-A win of the season in the same game. He pitched five innings and allowed six runs (one earned) on four hits. He walked two and struck out four. … Andrew Brown hit a two-run home run in the 11th to power the Class AA Springfield Cardinals to a 5-3 victory at home. Brown went 2-for-5. … James Rapoport reached base five times. He went 3-for-5 with a couple doubles and he walked twice to go with two RBIs. … Jesse Simpson struck out eight in his start for short-season Batavia. Simpson, a Baton Rouge native, was a 40th-round pick in this summer’s draft. … Scott Schneider, a 20th-round pick in the recent draft, also struck out eight. The St. Mary’s College alum did so in his seven innings of work for Low-A Quad Cities. He walked none, gave up four hits and took the loss because he allowed one earned run and the QC River Bandits couldn’t answer against Peoria. Schneider, a righty, has a 1.08 ERA in his first 58 1/3 pro innings.

8. Quick links: SI.com’s Jon Heyman ponders what would be the best World Series matchups that he’d like to see. There in his top five is one with the Cardinals and without any historical significance. He’d like to see La Russa square off against Mike Scioscia. … St. Louis native and Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard, who has begun is annual surge to and through September, became the fastest player to 600 RBIs since Ted Williams, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Howard got his 600th career RBI in his 693rd game. Williams got there in 675. … For the record, Albert Pujols got to 600 RBIs in his 752nd game. … Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey puts the blame for the Cubs’ chaos on the manager Lou Piniella and his patience, and across town at the Sun-Times Rick Telander gives a list of suggestions for the Cubs new owner. Check out No. 4.

9. One other quick thing from Elias: Smoltz is the ninth former Cy Young Award winner to pitch for La Russa. Smoltz actually tips the balance. La Russa has now managed more Cy Young winners after they won the award then during the season they won the award. Four of the pitchers have won the Cy Young with La Russa as their manager — Carpenter (2005), Dennis Eckersley (1992), Bob Welch (1990) and LaMarr Hoyt (1983). The four other pitches that La Russa managed after their Cy Young seasons were Sparky Lyle, Tom Seaver, Fernando Valenzuela and Pat Hentgen. The latter two were with him as Cardinals.

10. It was a stream of consciousness line way at the bottom of his weekly and lengthy missive on the NFL, but something Peter King wrote in his Monday Morning Quarterback got some mileage yesterday here in Baseball City. King wrote: “Said it before and I’ll say it again: Derek Jeter’s the best baseball player of my lifetime.” Take that and misquote it Jim Rice. We baseball writers have been accused of romancing and moralizing on our beat — in general, I suppose, being the A&E to our colleague’s Spike TV — but when I was told that I may be asked about this Jeter pronouncement on a radio show yesterday it got me thinking. Perhaps the esteemed football writer is younger than we thought, or maybe he values championships over all things. The latter certainly has merit. You all know I’ve been accused of being a Jeter honk/apologist/campaign manager in the St. Louis press box. As I thought who the best player of my lifetime is, however, it’s hard to shake the image of Ken Griffey Jr. skating through Seattle’s center fielder or sweetly upper-cutting a ball into the seats. And that’s just to start. Heck, there are a few guys in their prime right now that fit the definition.

Still, it’s an interesting question: Who is the best player of your lifetime?

-30-