TOWER GROVE – The PostCards inbin was overrun with spam and the Cyrillic alphabet – who knew four years of Russian would help me wade through questions for a baseball mailbag? спасибо Большое. One email that had the subject line: “Thanks Houston/We Have Liftoff!”

Thought for sure that was a love letter to Brandon Backe. But no.

It was a religious group’s mass email with a space travel pun. Houston? Liftoff? Getit? Dah. (Just wait until the Cardinals’ resident aeronautic engineer has a breakout game against that Astros — think: BARTON BLASTS OFF.) Apparently the group that sent me an email is doing well in Houston. Not unlike the Cardinals, who return to Busch Stadium on Tuesday coming off a 4-3 road trip that included a series victory at their division rival’s ballpark.

Floating in the flotsam and jetsam of spam, job listings, and foreign-language offers for who knows what, were actual questions. For too long I’ve neglected PostCards. JSL!!!#$%!!!  has swooped in to fill the void, but there’s room enough in the questions-and-answers business for both. So, PostCards returns. Weekly.

Write PostCards@post-dispatch.com with any questions, or click the button to the right.

All thrusters are go. Back into the mailbag:

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Q: When are you bringing PostCards back? I really appreciate the in-depth answers you give. JSL!!! is great and covers a large number of topics, but your forum is designed to examine a question. Hope you bring it back soon!

My question is this: Since Anthony Reyes is in the bullpen primarily for long relief and I am certain he is being marketed as a starter, why not team him with Todd Wellemeyer like the Quad Cities club does with its starters? Wellemeyer typically pitches a great 5 innings, but rarely (if ever) goes beyond it. Tony La Russa can just set up Reyes for the long relief job when Wellemeyer pitches. Obviously there will be times when this does not work — Reyes may have had to pitch a few games earlier. However, if this arrangement were scheduled, it could keep the rest of the bullpen from being overly taxed prior to the return of other starters, and it has the added benefit of showcasing Reyes as a quasi-starter. This arrangement could also be used for a returning starter whose pitch count needs to remain low for a few starts.

I know you have studied the Quad Cities arrangement - what would be the pros and cons of doing the same on the major league level? Of course, if Reyes continues to pitch in relief like he (has), he may take a more prominent role than the long relief guy.

– L.R. Gray, Franklin, Tenn.

DG: Your first question has been answered already if you’re reading this. The arrangement that L.R. is referencing is the piggyback rotation that the Cardinals used at the lowest levels of their minors last season. The farm system liked it so much that the directors have expanded its use this season — from High-A down the Cardinals will use a “tandem rotation”. The Cliff Notes on the plan are this:

• Eight starters fill out the rotation.
• They got on a four-day turn.
• The starters are paired together.
• They alternate starts.

Simple as that. It’s not a new concept — and here is where the answer begins — because pitching coach Dave Duncan and manager Tony La Russa used the piggyback rotation before, in the big leagues, in 1993 with the Oakland Athletics. So, they’ve been willing to try a different look before. (Duncan even entertained a proposal that they try a four-man rotation — and its “shadow rotation” — back at the start of the 2007 season. Well, he “entertained” long enough to explain what it wouldn’t work.) The reason why it wouldn’t work in the Wellemeyer-Reyes example is because it would isolate two pitchers on one day without shuffling the rest of the deck, so to speak.

The Cardinals don’t have the arms in the other spots of the rotation to handcuff a couple pitchers together for one start every five days. Joel Pineiro, Wellemeyer and even Kyle Lohse have not yet consistently showed they can be counted on for six-plus innings every start. There is some logic to pairing Pineiro and Brad Thompson and Wellemeyer and Reyes for their starts — even alternate the arms for their starts. But that leaves the rest of the bullpen twisting around those days, puts a heavy load of responsibility on Adam Wainwright, Braden Looper and Lohse to some dadys get through eight innings or risk imploding the bullpen. And …

Well, the tandem system takes the pitchers themselves buying into one notion: That they’ll have to get past defining themselves by their win-loss record.

Easier to get minor-leaguers to accept that (by force) than major leaguers.

And Reyes the reliever seems ready to do more than just long relief …

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Q: Where can you find the daily box scores on StlToday.com? I have looked and looked. Are they available?

– Jim Hogan

DG: Sure are. In the upper right corner of the Cardinals page there is a “gametracker” for the Cardinals game, and that includes a link to a daily scoreboard. On the scoreboard there are not only box scores — like the ones from yesterday — there are also head-to-head rundowns for today’s games.

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Q: First of all, I enjoy your insights. Question regarding the tandem catching duo of Jason LaRue and Yadier Molina: Do they represent the strongest throwing tandem for receivers in Baseball? I think so.

– Allen, Portland, Ore.

DG: That certainly was the talk at spring training when LaRue was pegging runner after runner. When the Cardinals set out looking for a backup catcher they made it a priority to find someone who could control the running game. This was a failing last year, if you recall, partially because of an injury to Gary Bennett. In LaRue, the Cardinals have a catcher who has a strong arm, a quick release — and, just as important — an accurate throw. Molina has the better arm and the quicker release (see those pickoffs), but LaRue’s accuracy makes his throws to second about as good. Here are LaRue’s caught-stealing percentages from the last couple years:

• 2007 … 35.0 percent
• 2006 … 36.1 percent
• 2005 … 32.9 percent
• 2004 … 29.6 percent
• 2003 … 26.6 percent
• 2002 … 45.2 percent
• 2001 … 60.9 percent

The catch with LaRue — and why the Cardinals have said he’s a fit as a backup — is he’s coming off knee surgery and cannot handle the rigors of being a starting catching. The Cardinals will dole out his playing time with that in mind. 

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Q: I remember reading on the Vuch Report that there would be a Web site where fans could follow the Cardinals minor league affiliates during the regular season. I’ve lost that site but would like to visit it and follow along. Thanks for the help.

– Brad Goessling

DG: While we continue to explore the best way to bring regular-season information from the minor leagues into the blog (some ideas are percolating), one industrious Web site has taken a Vuch Report-like harvest of information and morphed it into a daily roundup of performances across the organization. That Web site, a blossoming star of blogdom, is Future Redbirds. You might recognize the signature style of the designer behind Future Redbirds’ masthead.

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Q: Was Blake King one of the minor leaguers released recently? Have not heard anything about since the start of camp. Thanks in advance

– Rick Anderson

DG: Blake King, Mickey Mantle’s kin, is in Quad Cities, part of the aforementioned piggyback rotation there for the club formerly known as The Swing. The righthander is 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA in two games (one start). One look at his line reveals what he’ll have to improve to advance to High-A: “8 BB. 6 SO.”

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Q: Mr Goold, I know that this isn’t (necessarily) your doing, but would you please, for me, tell whomever who writes the abbreviated plural of “Nationals” as “Nat’s”. As you know, that poor apostrophe turns a plural (”Nats”) into a possessive. Perhaps he (or she) may want to change it, before enraging all the readers who care about clear thinking!

– Jim Wilson, Ladue

DG: Thanks for the parenthetical “necessarily”. (I think.) But when it comes to such things, I best keep to my own keyboard. Glass houses and all.

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Almost forgot …

PCQ: The PostCards Question

Stealing this shamelessly from a trivia night I attended over the weekend: During the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, what baseball-inspired password did U.S. soldiers use to identify themselves to allies? A hint: The battle went from December 1944 to January 1945.

Write PostCards@post-dispatch.com with your answers. The best — and the most complete — will be reprinted in the next edition of the mailbag. 

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Every week during the regular season, The Post-Dispatch’s baseball writer Derrick Goold will answer fans’ emails in a mailbag blog called PostCards, a spin-off of Bird Land. To comment and discuss the mailbag visit the PostCards blog on StlToday.com. To submit questions write postcards@post-dispatch.com or file them as a comment on this blog. With all questions please include your name and hometown.

PostCards will run online exclusively at StlToday.com.

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