TOWER GROVE — Twice this season, St. Louis Cardinals starter Joel Pineiro has had streaks of four consecutive starts without walking a batter. Thirteen times this summer, he has started a game and not allowed a walk. For this, he credits his father.

“My dad taught me that,” he said this past weekend. “You don’t want to walk people. You don’t want to let them get on base. You don’t want to help them start their…

TOWER GROVE — There was a time when Blake Hawksworth, as a young, big-bonus pitching prospect, was so changeup-happy that people cautioned him that if he didn’t use his fastball he would lose his fastball.

It took him some time to realize how right they were.

Hawksworth, emerging now as potential relief for the St. Louis Cardinals and their bullpen, doesn’t throw with the same velocity that he once did, but he’s learned that maybe he doesn’t…

TOWER GROVE — What Hall of Fame baseball writer Rick Hummel wrote earlier this week about the National League Central being a logjam in the standings is even more true to today.

A win last night at Miller Park against the St. Louis Cardinals put those pitching-poor Milwaukee Brewers — OK, so those were “deputy” GM Ryan Braun’s exact words — within a game of the division leaders. This afternoon the top teams in the NL…

MEMPHIS — In a clubhouse loaded with rookies that have shuttled between St. Louis and its Class AAA affiliate this season, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Kyle Lohse arrived in the Redbirds clubhouse to see a familiar face climb with him up the minor-league ladder.

Second baseman Daniel Descalso, a Double-A All-Star, will play his fourth game for Triple-A Memphis tonight, fresh from a promotion that brought him here hours after he helped Lohse get through his…

TOWER GROVE — The next hurdle between St. Louis Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse and his return to the rotation in time for Sunday’s doubleheader at Wrigley Field comes tonight in Memphis.

The righthander, who is recovering from a strained forearm, will make his second rehab start, this time for the Class AAA Memphis Redbirds. Last week, Lohse threw 79 pitches in a 4 2/3 innings rehab appearance with the Class AA affiliate in Springfield, Mo. Lohse…

TEMPE, Ariz. — If St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols scores the National League Player of the Week award for the first week of this season it will be the second consecutive P-O-W award he’s won dating back to the last week of last season.

It will also be an upset of sorts

The Cardinals present two candidates for the weekly award: Pujols, who had that seven-RBI Saturday, and Kyle Lohse, whose Easter Sunday shutout punctuated…

JUPITER, Fla. — They’re calling it a campaign that focuses on a few “rising stars”, and representatives from Rawlings have made several surgical strikes into the Grapefruit League to film the four players selected to appear in docu-commercials. This morning, they visited Camp Cardinals.

Catcher Yadier Molina is one of the four. Have Gold Glove, will shine.

“His reaction upon receiving his first Gold Glove was really something that stood out,” said Lindsey Naber, a brand manager with…

DOWNTOWN — The big-ticket day of the 13th annual Winter Warm-up continues this afternoon with National League MVP Albert Pujols, who is on the stage right now signing, and a parade of other headline Cardinals, many of whom will be receiving an award at tonight’s Baseball Writers’ Dinner. The news was this morning’s signings of Todd Wellemeyer and Chris Duncan, but the comments from St. Louis Cardinals players today address a wider spectrum of topics.

There’s…

LAS VEGAS — While wrapping my ears around Chinese Democracy, replaying Snow Patrol’s addictive new album and, for kicks, spinning ZZ Top’s cover of “Viva Las Vegas” on the trusty iPod, I also brought along a little research for this trip to the Baseball Winter Meetings. You never know what golden nugget of information you’ll find from one page to the next on the latest edition of The Bill James Handbook.

Picked up the 2009 edition, with…

SOUTH GRAND — Would have had the weekly PostCards posted much earlier this morning if the first question — from the sharp, witty and ever-adept keyboard of regular Frank Fuhrig, of course — had not been as much a homework assignment as a question.

It’s written less for a mailbag and more for a syllabus.

One element of the St. Louis Cardinals’ interest/chances in landing San Diego ace Jake Peavy is the amount of money the Cardinals…

TOWER GROVE — When San Diego decided it had to explore trading Cy Young Award-winning ace Jake Peavy, the first hurdle to clear was the righthander’s no-trade clause. The Padres approached Peavy’s agent, Barry Axelrod, who told me the other night that Peavy, when requested supplied a list of five teams, all in the National League.

The St. Louis Cardinals, as has been reported, were on that list. They were one of Peavy’s Fave 5.

That alone…

TOWER GROVE - The bountiful stats Ryan Ludwick put up this season, the career-high wins for pitchers like Kyle Lohse and even the radar readouts from rookie Jason Motte – as big as those numbers were, the digits that continue to define the Cardinals 2008 season are these: 31.

Everyone knows what that number is.

The first question of the Return of PostCards forces us to discuss what that number means. The Cardinals blew 31 saves this…

TOWER GROVE — Now that he’s free from a season spent neck deep and road-tested with the Kansas City Royals, former Cardinal TV stalwart Joel Goelberg has his shoulder in a sling — long story — and plenty of free time. That got him thinking.

When the Cardinals signed Kyle Lohse to a four-year, $41-million deal, complete with a no-trade claus, the contract was viewed as a descendant of Carlos Silva’s, another step in the evolutionary…

Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse will miss his scheduled start Sunday to undergo an exam that could be the harbinger of a contract extension with the team for the pending free-agent pitcher, officials and sources said Sunday morning.

Lohse was scheduled to start Sunday in the season finale against Cincinnati, but early that morning the Cardinals announced Brad Thompson would start the game at Busch Stadium. Manager Tony La Russa said Lohse was having an exam with…

PITTSBURGH — The Cardinals made a late-night switcheroo and reversed course on their pitching plans for this weekend series against the Pirates at PNC Park. Joel Pineiro is back as tonight’s starter — if there is need for a starter tonight, that is — and Brad Thompson has been shifted to Sunday.

The Cardinals had announced yesterday that the two would swap starts, thus setting up Pineiro to pitch Sunday here and then next weekend against…