TOWER GROVE — As detailed in the first of Joe Strauss’ post-season autopsies on the St. Louis Cardinals, manager Tony La Russa said a year he enjoyed with a team he professed a fondness for “from Day 1 of spring training really” left a sour, morning-mouth taste because of the way things finished. Not just the sweep in the National League Division Series, but specifically the performance in Game 3 of the playoffs.

“The first two games we had a chance,” La Russa said. “(Saturday) wasn’t good. that was the one that cost us the most.”

The first of the Division Series to end — also the first of three Division Series to end in a sweep — concluded in a 5-1 Los Angeles Dodgers victory. LA not only took advantage of the Cardinals suddenly bared weaknesses (hitting throughout the lineup, hitting with runners in scoring position, hitting around Albert Pujols, hitting here, hitting there …), but also got around the Cardinals’ strengths (starting pitching, starting pitching, starting pitching).

It also shined the spotlight on how the Cardinals finished the season with an eroding defense and scoring troubles that didn’t snap back to form the moment the calendar turned to October.

“I never thought that we mailed it in,” La Russa said. “I felt that things were being done enough that we could find a way to improve it.”

Many of the Cardinals came by Busch Stadium on Sunday to pack up their things and bid farewell to clubbies, coaches and other colleagues. Some, like Brendan Ryan, Matt Holliday and Skip Schumaker, took in parts of the football games — while monitoring the success of their Fantasy Football teams in the clubhouse league. (Ryan, dutifully, wore his Brian Westbrook jersey, the one given to him for drafting the Philadelphia Eagles’ running back way back on the league’s draft day.)

The abrupt ending to their season was felt by many players.

Outfielder Ryan Ludwick said it was the first time he came into the clubhouse when “it felt like we should still be playing.” Others had a similar sensation.

“Never year seems so far away,” Ludwick said. “But it’s right around the corner.”

Here’s some things we learned about the 2009 Cardinals and the 2010 Cardinals this season past weekend:

1. Protecting Pujols remains the goal — and I don’t mean protecting him from having to talk to the media. The Los Angeles Dodgers and decisive manager Joe Torre set the blueprint for dealing with the Cardinals, especially in a short series: Walk Pujols. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak spoke about that in a post-op article for today’s paper, He said the hitter behind Pujols has to “leave a mark” when opponents pitch around Pujols. The Cardinals first baseman led the league in runs scored this past season, the fourth time in his career that he has topped the NL in runs. He did not score a run in the NLDS. Not one. The Dodgers put him on base three times and he singled three times, and the closest he got to home was second base. Want to know what the Cardinals’ offense stalled that’s it: Pujols was stranded at second base four times. In the 10 plate appearances by the Nos. 4 and 5 hitters with Pujols on base, the Cardinals got one hit — Ludwick’s RBI single in the first inning of Game 1. Holliday was hit by a pitch once with Pujols on base, and rookie Colby Rasmus — the best hitter for the Cardinals in the series — worked a walk with Pujols on base.

Say it with now: Both were stranded 90 feet behind him.

2. Many questions confront the Cardinals as they enter the postseason, and while this won’t get too many headlines until February it may be no less important come April: Who from inside the organization will complete the starting rotation? At least one of the two open spots in the rotation will be filled by a pitcher coming from the bullpen or Class AAA. That list includes but is not limited to Mitchell Boggs, P.J. Walters, favorite Jaime Garcia and Blake Hawksworth. The last on that list packed up his things Sunday and prepped for a life-changing winter. He’s getting married in November, and he’ll be a returning major-leaguer in February. But at what role? Hawksworth spent all of his time in the minors as a starter, yet found success this season and carved his own role as a reliever. Adam Wainwright likened Hawksworth arrival to his own, coming in as a middle reliever/innings-eater and leaving as a righthander called to the mound in the late innings. Said La Russa on Hawksworth: “He certainly put himself in the club’s plans.”

As what? That’s today’s poll question:

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3. The Cardinals only scored six runs in the three games of the Division Series, and all season long the prophecy of this postseason exit was clanging in our communal conscious: Turns out six is a serious number.

4. HIT THE LINKS: One of my favorite people in the sportswriting biz, John Branch, writes for The New York Times about unearthed video of Babe Ruth, where he is probably not playing against the Cardinals as originally believed. … Kevin Goldstein, over at Baseball Prospectus, previews the Arizona Fall League season with a comment on Darryl Jones as the Cardinals best one-to-watch in the AFL. He also writes about Aaron Loewen, Toronto’s former pitching prospect who is “trying to become the next Rick Ankiel.” … USA Today’s Bob Nightengale’s take on the Dodgers’ swift sweep of the Cardinals. … Viva El Birdos has a fantastic chart on umpire Mike Everitt’s strike zone from Game 3. It confirms what Buster Olney wrote about in his blog at ESPN.com: The Cardinals were 1-for-10 on pitches up in the zone. … MLB.com has a comprehensive look at Joe Torre’s success in the postseason with two of baseball’s regal franchises. … Hal McCoy, the Hall of Fame writer who ended a three-decade run as the Cincinnati Reds beat writer for the Dayton Daily News this past season, writes about the best players he ever saw play against the Reds. He’s got a Cardinal on the list, but he doesn’t play first base. … Colonel Tom Haudricourt offers five ways to fix the Milwaukee Brewers in his recent missive for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. … According to one correspondent reporting from the Dodgers’ champagne celebration Saturday night, Manny Ramirez pulled out a carton of milk and began dumping it on folks. No link there. Just think it’s a tad gross. That’s all.

5. Think this was a lost weekend for the city of St. Louis? Cardinals, Blues, Rams and Mizzou — all battered, and sometimes in embarrassing fashion. But, hark, there are winners in our midst. Forty local ballplayers went out into the cold this weekend and came back with a Guinness World Record. Breaking and resetting a record I helped set two years ago, the two scores of local men led by Steve Pona and Chuck Williams played 48 hours consecutive of baseball at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O’Fallon, Mo. The two teams re-enacted the 1944 World Series, pitting the St. Louis Browns against the St. Louis Cardinals, and they completed their “baseball marathon” having played 111 innings, according to the official web site.

Looks like the Browns won this one, 157-123.

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Last thought before the offseason coverage here at Bird Land begins, goes to La Russa: “I don’t like the way we finished. That’s something to think about.”

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