DENVER — Cardinals lefty Mark Mulder is on his way to St. Louis — not to throw a bullpen or workout at the facilities at Busch Stadium, but to meet with the team’s doctor about his twice surgically repaired left shoulder.

Manager Tony La Russa said in the debriefing of Mulder’s rehab start Monday night in Memphis it mentioned the lefty “felt some shoulder fatigue.” Mulder will meet with Dr. George Paletta on Wednesday morning…

DOWNTOWN — Turns out, there may be more than meets the eye about new Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus’ apparent trouble hitting at Busch Stadium.

Glaus left Friday night’s game after his second strikeout of the evening, a bases-loaded whiff in the second inning of the eventual loss to Houston. The Cardinals said Glaus left because watery eyes made it difficult for him to see. After the 3-2 loss, manager Tony La Russa elaborated on…

DOWNTOWN — In the eighth inning of a rather usual July game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cardinals closer Jason Isringhausen stepped into the box and faced Bucs lefty Joe Beimel. Isringhausen had come in to close out what was a 9-6 ballgame, but a turn of the lineup had put a bat in his hand with the bases loaded.

So, naturally he ripped a triple, and the box score reads: 

Rolen Scores; Renteria Scores; Matheny…

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…

TOWER GROVE — The Cardinals jet off on their first road trip of the season having let so few of their opposing hitters take flight at all this season. Much has been made of the Cardinals rotation’s sub-1.00 ERA through six games and the staff as a whole has an ERA of 1.83, better than every team in baseball save the LA Dodgers and their 1.70.

That’s the macro picture. The micro is even more…

DOWNTOWN — Cardinals righthander Joel Pineiro strolled into the clubhouse a few minutes ago, team bag slung over his shoulder, and said he’s only a few days away from starting what he hopes is a short rehab assignment.

Pineiro worked five innings Thursday against a team of extended-spring players. He walked one and struck out six, though he said the strike zone was a little more forgiving then he’s going to get in the majors….

DOWNTOWN — Manager Tony La Russa either pulled off a great bluff, or a few of us totally ignored his tell. Probably it’s more of the latter than the former, as the Cardinals manager sided with experience, service time and the obvious when he made out his lineup for Opening Day.

With a caveat that he could flip-flop two hitters before tomorrow’s first pitch, La Russa planned to post the following lineup for the Cardinals’ opener against NL…

JUPITER, Fla. — Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse didn’t have his best stuff Thursday, but he had enough stuff to continue the club’s sizzling close to its Florida schedule and he had the kind of stuff he’d take in any regular-season start.

Lohse worked five innings against Florida and pushed the Cardinals halfway to a 2-0 victory against the Marlins on Thursday. The Cardinals finished Grapefruit League play on a seven-game winning streak and 12-1-1 over…

JUPITER, Fla. — The end is nigh.

The Cardinals look to leave Florida on a weeklong winning streak with only one stop and two games between them and the regular-season opening Monday at Busch Stadium. Most of the decisions have been made. Only two questions remain for the roster:

1. Is Brendan Ryan healthy enough to be active?
2. Anthony Reyes or Kelvin Jimenez for the last bullpen spot?

Looks like both of those questions will be answered in…

JUPITER, Fla. — Back in 2005, Ryan Ludwick had his best shot yet at the big-league club. He was on the team coming out of spring training, had survived the surge of a young turk named Grady Sizemore and was going to get a chance to hit into more playing time and see where more playing time took him.

And then, after 41 at-bats with Cleveland, the following transactions took place on May 31:

CLE – Activated OF JUAN GONZALEZ…