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 — A little more than a year ago, the Cardinals’ starting rotation was stringing together a ludicrously long streak of scoreless innings. The starters’ ERA for the month was less than 1.00, and dropping because of what one righthander was doing to the Minnesota Twins.

Opposite Johan Santana and facing a lineup that included MVP Justin Morneau and batting champ Joe Mauer, this Cardinal pitcher kept throwing up zeros. He held the Twins to…

The major league team may have left Friday morning — and taken the Double-A team with it — but most of the Cardinals’ minor leaguers remained in Florida for the weekend. They’re still playing. Which means there are still Vuch Reports coming.

Below are the complete reports from Friday’s scrimmages, and after them are the highlights from the two previous days — Vuch Reports that slipped through the cracks of packing, traveling and other writing. The minor league…

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. — Still bothered by muscle discomfort in his ribcage, Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan will remain in Florida after the team leaves for its two-game trip to Springfield, Mo. The club is packing a couple different options as insurance.

Ryan had to cut short his work in the batting cages Wednesday, manager Tony La Russa disclosed Thursday morning. Ryan is allowed to participate in activities “as tolerated”, and he had no hesitation during baserunning drills this morning. But…

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…

JUPITER, Fla. — Manager Tony La Russa could not officially confirm it for the two players in question, but he couldn’t ignore the obvious any longer.

La Russa approached both pitcher Kyle McClellan and outfielder Brian Barton to tell them they are going to make the major-league team and caution them that there is a reason he kept his hands in his pockets as they talked. See, there are things that can happen in the next…

JUPITER, Fla. — The news this morning wasn’t so much who was on the lineup card, but who wasn’t at their lockers anymore in the clubhouse.

The Cardinals made two reassignments to the minor-league camp this morning, putting both righthanded pitchers Cliff Politte and Chris Perez in Triple-A Memphis. Politte got encouraging words before his assignment as the team told him they needed him to go there, get innings and he’ll “pitch in the big…

JUPITER, Fla. — The Cardinals placed seven players Tuesday on the disabled list for the opening week of the regular season, but the list was noteworthy for who wasn’t on it as much as who was.

Brendan Ryan was not placed on the disabled list and the Cardinals believe that he could be ready for opening day despite the lost time because of soreness in his right rib cage.

“He’s feeling better,” GM John Mozeliak said….