DOWNTOWN — Not to be missed amidst a quick burst of roster moves Sunday morning was a tall lefthander striding through the Busch Stadium outfield to do what he hasn’t done in nearly a year.

Mark Mulder was off to throw a bullpen.

Cast as a reliever in his return to majors after two years of rehab from shoulder surgery and several failed attempts to start again, Mulder is back in the rotation, Cardinals manager…

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Manager Brian Poldberg and his Northwest Arkansas Naturals came to Hammons Field this week in the midst of a title race, a three-way joust for a Texas League first-half division title. What he saw across the way for a doubleheader Saturday was the team the Naturals were chasing and its two starters.

Both major-league pitchers.

“It just happens,” Poldberg said the visitor’s clubhouse at Hammons Field before losing both games in the doubleheader. “That’s why…

TOWER GROVE — The last bundle of mail exchanged between readers and the Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow featured some of the finer-tuned questions in this couple weeks of PostCards.

Of specific interest to readers is the idea of cost-benefit analysis when it comes the draft. There were many questions about it over the past two weeks and I tried to capture the repetition by selecting a few representatives….

TOWER GROVE – With the draft approaching, Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow is a traveling man.

Constantly traveling.

There’s less than three weeks before the draft and soon the Cardinals will be holding scouting workouts at various sites around the country — and scout meetings at each place. While the Cardinals held a mock draft this past winter to help get more familiar with the amateur players available this June, and take…

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…

JUPITER, Fla. — When Colby Rasmus dug in against the crafty veteran in Tuesday’s game, the Cardinals’ could-be rookie outfielder had a simple plan.

“Just trying to work the count,” he said, grinning. “Get a good pitch to hit.”

Of course, the purpose of the coach-pitch game is to have plenty of pitches to hit and plenty of action for the defense. Many of the Cardinals’ younger players and non-roster invitees squared off in the…

TOWER GROVE — No matter the topic this offseason, when it comes to the Cardinals the conversation always finds its way back to the minor-league system.

Talking shortstop? Well, the Cardinals are out looking for one because the internal feeling is that the best middle infield prospect in the system, Brendan Ryan, isn’t quite ready to take on the full-time job. OK, so they’ll try for a trade. Except, the Cardinals may not have…

TOWER GROVE — The line was long and the supply of shirts short, but my mother and I were undaunted in our pursuit.

The Colorado Rockies had revealed their logo the day before and we were out to get a T-shirt, one of the first ever made with our very own major-league baseball team’s logo. We hit a few Gart Bros., made our a trip all the way out to Cinderella City and then, back…

DOWNTOWN — The press conference held earlier this week at Busch Stadium answered one of the biggest question looming over the Cardinals and their 2008 season — Tony La Russa will return as manager. But that’s far from the last question facing the Cardinals.

Nor was it the only question answered Monday.

John Mozeliak, the interim general manager who is a candidate to be the club’s general manager, has been guaranteed a position in the…

TOWER GROVE — Hours after making his Arizona Fall League debut, catcher-turned-reliever Jason Motte and his roommates hit Wal-Mart to outfit their new apartment. I caught up with him last night while you could still hear the tell-tale echo of a new home and its empty rooms.

“We’re just trying to get everything in place,” he said.

Motte, in only his second season as a pitcher, is one of a handful of Cardinal prospects who got the…