TOWER GROVE — Asked Sunday morning if his lineup would look a little different if the St. Louis Cardinals were playing a team out of contention, manager Tony La Russa paused, rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, and finally acknowledged: Probably.

If he didn’t offer a complete answer, he’ll start today.

Of the five teams either in the playoffs or in the playoff picture (looking at you Colorado and Atlanta), the Cardinals are the only team that won’t face a winning team in the season’s final week. The Cardinals start a three-game series at Cincinnati (74-82, 4th) tonight before returning home for a three-game series against Milwaukee (77-79, 3rd). Atlanta has the oasis of a series with Washington awaiting them after finishing a series with the Florida Marlins, who then end the season against playoff-bound Philadelphia. Colorado and the Los Angeles Dodgers meet in LA for the season-finale series. The Dodgers can clinch the NL West tonight with a win.

After days of deflecting the question, La Russa conceded Sunday that, yes, winning home-field advantage for the postseason is important to him. He’ll keep that in mind, but he also planned to adhere to the policy he first described in Houston: Once you get to October, everything is geared toward preparing for October.

Well, home-field advantage is an edge the Cardinals would be wise to seize.

Because the playoff picture, right now, appears imposing for the Cardinals. Of the four other teams vying for (or already holding) invitations to the postseason, the Cardinals have a winning record this season against only one of them. Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park has been unkind to the Cardinals, just as the Rockies’ pitching staff has bedeviled them. It may be cruise control from here to the end, but there are obstacles ahead, and that’s where today’s 10@10 (written on my beloved laptop!) begins.

1. The Cardinals finish the regular season 1-6 against the Colorado Rockies (though, maybe it was really 2-5, if you check out No. 3). And the Rockies weren’t the only team the Cardinals struggled against this season. The Cardinals are “a different team”, as a few of the players said entering this series against Colorado, and so are the opponents. Still, some trends span the evolution of the Cardinals’ lineup — like the hitting against all the potential opponents. The Cardinals had a winning record against every division in baseball, and they gorged themselves on the NL Central, going 45-29 (so far). Dig deeper into the numbers, though and here is what you discover about how the Cardinals did against potential playoff foes (with the slash lines — BA/OBP/SLG — representing how the Cardinals hit against the opponent):

vs. PHI … 1-4, 7.95 ERA, .324 OPP BA … .297/.345/.522

vs. LAD … 5-2, 2.48 ERA, .266 OPP BA … .218/.306/.343

vs. COL … 1-6, 5.69 ERA, .283 OPP BA … .206/.257/.342

vs. ATL … 2-4, 3.91 ERA, .269 OPP BA … .220/.274/.240

2. Say this about the Cardinals: They sure know how to jumpstart a contender. Way, way back earlier this season, the Cardinals were swept by the Colorado Rockies in a four-game series at Busch Stadium and the Rockies soared from there — out of the NL West dregs and into the playoff picture. Now, he comes Atlanta, surging at the end of the season, winner of seven consecutive, riding a tsunami (copy infringement!) into the Wild Card race — a wave that started with a … yep … three-game sweep of the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. That inspires today’s poll:

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3. Maybe Clint Barmes’ catch Sunday that ended the Rockies victories against the Cardinals was the catch of the year, as manager Jim Tracy said, but first it’s gotta be a catch. In this morning’s paper, Denver Post baseball writer Troy Renck suggests that maybe Barmes didn’t catch the ball at all. Replays certainly were inconclusive as we watched them in the press box. Right fielder Ryan Spilborghs tells Renck: “Only me and Barmes know the truth.” So, Barmes’ catch joins Matt Holliday’s slide, and the same is true of Barmes as Holliday admitted during his weekend visit: He sold it well. Here is the picture linked to below, and you can see a better resolution of it here at the fan blog, “Colorado Rockies Photos”:

Barmes photo from Sunday catch. First from Denver Post. The second is from a fan blog, "Colorado Rockies Photo".

4. La Russa may have tipped his hand a bit more than he usually does in the celebration of the Cardinals’ clinching Saturday night. He said one of the reasons the Cardinals allowed Adam Wainwright to pitch a career-high 130 pitches was because he would have an extra day of rest before his next start and an extra day of rest before his start after that. Well, Wainwright has one more regular-season start — his chance to hit 20 wins — and that means the second start La Russa referenced would be in the playoffs. Check the calendar and that means he stated the obvious: Wainwright is targeted for Game 2. La Russa also mapped out the starting assignments for the rest of the regular season:

Joel Pineiro … tonight at Cincinnati

John Smoltz … Wednesday at Cincinnati

Chris Carpenter … Thursday at Cincinnati

Adam Wainwright … Friday vs. Milwaukee

Kyle Lohse … Saturday vs. Milwaukee

Joel Pineiro … Sunday vs. Milwaukee

That is the rotation as set out by La Russa when volunteered on Sunday. As with everything, it is certainly subject to change. Of note is both Smoltz and Lohse getting those last-week starts, and Pineiro getting two more starts before the postseason starts.

5. Already the National League record holder after a tidy flip to Jason Motte at first base on Sunday, Albert Pujols needs four more assists this season to be the major-league record holder. His 181 broke Mark Grace’s record, and he’s three shy of tying Bill Buckner’s 184, set in 1985.

6. Maybe there is something Houston can teach the Cardinals about a potential playoff opponent. With a victory Monday, the Astros improved to 5-0 this season against Philadelphia. Houston’s pitchers have held Philadelphia to a .226 batting average and collected a 2.40 ERA against the Phillies. One possible reason: Three of the Astros’ lefthanded pitchers have not given up a run to the Phillies this season — Wandy Rodriguez (7 innings) and relievers Tim Byrdak (3 1/3 innings) and Wesley Wright (1 inning).

7. The Cardinals Big Three — Carpenter, Pineiro and Wainwright — all have a winning percentage of .750 or better since the All-Star break. And while we probably all agree that wins are a measure of the team as much as the pitcher, can we also agree that the wins by those three pitchers determined the measure of this year’s Cardinals team? According to ESPN research, the trio of Cardinals are the first with a post-All-Star break winning percentage better than .750 since 2003 and only the fourth since 1961. The threesomes:

2009 Cardinals … Carpenter (9-1), Pineiro (8-2), Wainwright (9-3)

2003 Braves … Hampton (9-3), Maddux (8-2), Ortiz (9-3)

1998 Astros … R. Johnson (10-1), Lima (9-3), Reynolds (9-3)

1993 Braves … Avery (9-3), Glavine (12-2), Maddux (12-2)

8. Here’s a tidbit from the Elias Sports Bureau, New York Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano did more than join four other Yankees with 25 homers with his grand slam on Monday — he entered the company of … Rogers Hornsby? With 25 homers and 201 base hits this season, Cano is the third second baseman since Hornsby’s retirement to have at least 200 hits and at least 25 homers in a season. The others: Bret Boone (2001) and Alfonso Soriano (2002).

9. Hit the links: In case you missed it from over the weekend, here were two blog entries from the champagne celebration at Coors Field: Scenes from the Champagne Popping. … Chris Carpenter offers his opinion on who should win the Cy Young Award. … Rick Hummel has information on how playoff tickets are gone — for the moment.

10. Cardinals Hall of Famer Bob Gibson is out and about pitching his new book, Sixty Feet, Six Inches. The book is co-written with Reggie Jackson and Lonnie Wheeler, and basically what Wheeler has done is transcribed a series of conversations with the Hall of Fame pitcher and the Hall of Fame hitter about baseball’s duel at 60 feet, 6 inches. The book dropped last week, and here on Page 229, is a standard exchange between the two fierce competitors:

JACKSON: A reporter once asked me what sets apart the great player, the Hall of Famer, from everybody else. I said it was pride. Pride is what makes a man believe that he’s the best at what he does. … Pride is the will to succeed. That’s what sets the great player apart.

GIBSON: Well, you have all the pride in the world, but if you don’t have the talent to go with it, it doesn’t matter much. Just the pride itself is not going to make you successful.

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