JUPITER, Fla. — What is true for major-league spring training is also true in minor-league spring training: The statistics are the ends, and often the means are more important.

Consider Adam Ottavino’s day.

The former first-round pick had a garish line from Monday’s game against Class AA Jacksonville. It read:

4.2 IP, 7 H, 6 runs, 2 BB, 4 Ks

But there is a story behind the numbers. Five of those six runs were unearned, and he was darn…

JUPITER, Fla. — Weather threatened to wash out an entire day of minor-league games all across the Grapefruit League on Sunday. Advisories zipped around the inboxes of minor-league officials announcing how games here were cancelled, games there were cancelled.

But games involving the St. Louis Cardinals’ affiliates went on — though not entirely as scheduled.

Some quick thinking and re-organizing by camp coordinator Mike Shildt and coaches Derek Lilliquist and Dyar Miller allowed the Cardinals to race…

JUPITER, Fla. — However the St. Louis Cardinals third base position shakes out at the major-league level, it seems certain that first-round pick Brett Wallace will begin this season at Class AA Springfield. Few think that he will stay there for long.

Though given barely a second glance at the major-league camp this spring, Wallace has clicked along at his usual 3-for-5, 2-for-5 pace during minor-league games. On Saturday, he broke loose.

Wallace, a third baseman, went…

JUPITER, Fla. — The St. Louis Cardinals knew coming into camp who their two major-league catchers were going to be going into the regular season. Yadier Molina is the starter now, later and as long as the Cardinals can keep the Gold Glove-winning, rocket-armed Molina brother behind the plate. Jason LaRue was brought back — one of the first signings of the winter — to be his backup.

But after that …

One of the Cardinals most…

JUPITER, Fla. — One of the tricky things about reading box scores from spring training back there in the northern tundra is the inability to see the defensive side of the game. It’s impossible to know how Skip Schumaker is adjusting to second base this late in the camp or how he and Khalil Greene are clicking as a double-play combo without the benefit of something beyond the box score.

Ditto with the minors — only…

JUPITER, Fla. — The plan was to play Curt Smith often, but not necessarily every day. Then Smith got in the lineup, his manager at Johnson City told me this past fall, and it was impossible to take him out. He just kept hitting. He hit his way from Johnson City all the way to the league’s Player of the Year award. He hit his way from that hardware all the way to Low-A Quad…

JUPITER, Fla. — Big-bonus import Roberto De La Cruz made his spring game debut Thursday with the St. Louis Cardinals Low-A affiliate, and he rapped a couple hits, including a double. Just because the Dominican Republic teen is with a full-season squad to open the spring, doesn’t mean he’ll be with one when the season starts. De La Cruz received a record bonus, the highest ever given by the Cardinals to an international free agent,…

DOWNTOWN — Back in 2005, Cardinals instructor George Kissell, widely regarded as one of the authors of what manager Tony La Russa refers to as the “Cardinal Way,” returned after a year’s absence to Jupiter for his 65th spring training. No Cardinal has been a Cardinal longer nor guided and nurtured as many Cardinals as Kissell, and upon his return the Cardinals wanted to honor him for his service.

Before workouts one morning, the coaches conspired to…

TOWER GROVE — On Friday night in Miami, New York Mets center fielder Carlos Beltran creamed a pitch from Marlins closer Kevin Gregg for a two-out, last-strike, game-winning grand slam. Then in the afterglow of his big hit in a big moment for the October-chasing Mets, Beltran marked his celebration with an admission.

He said he still thinks about Adam Wainwright’s curveball.

“As a player, you always dream to be in a situation like that,” Beltran reportedly…

JUPITER, Fla. — With one of the myriad channels offering Olympic coverage on in the background, Cardinals prospect Colby Rasmus spoke about being here instead of over there and the knee that cost him more than a stamp on his passport.

He shrugged.

“I’m not really thinking about it,” Rasmus said. “It would have been a great opportunity. It didn’t happen.”

Rasmus sprained his knee while making a check swing back in late July. He offered at a…

MEMPHIS — Brian Barton edged closer to his scheduled return to the majors even as he was robbed of a extra-base hit late in Friday’s game against New Orleans. The Cardinals’ rookie outfielder smoked a shot to deep right-center field only to have Zephyrs’ center fielder Jesus Feliciano speed into the gap, snare the ball and carom off the wall.

The catch said as much about the hit as the fielder.

His second hit stolen, Barton sank…

MEMPHIS — Cardinals’ righthander Adam Wainwright – no longer rehabbing in a pitching-role limbo – made a swift and not entirely successful appearance in his first start of an assignment with Class AAA Memphis.

He did, however, make one thing more clear than his line: He’s coming back as a reliever.

“I know I’m very close to being able to help in whatever role it may be,” Wainwright said after his 27-pitch outing here tonight. “They’ve pretty much told me…

GRAND CENTER — There were only eight games scheduled Monday around the majors, and not one had the look of must-see TV.

Once San Diego Padres righthander Jake Peavy was scratched from his start against the Cardinals, the day lacked a bona fide ace — though Tampa Bay’s James Shields would qualify if he had the Q-rating to match his ERA. Only two of the eight games featured two teams with winnings records pitted against each…

DENVER — Not too far from where Coors Field is now, just down the Boulder Turnpike headed toward Boulder Valley and the mountains is the “Scenic Overlook” that was a landmark of my youth. It’s a quick pull off Highway 36 and it offers a panaromic view of the signature Flatirons and the valley.

It’s also high enough to be one of several places you could tune in KMOX.

Had the phrase existed years ago it would…

HOUSTON — Earlier this afternoon on the outskirts of New Orleans, Cardinals’ minor leaguer Nick Stavinoha — a familiar name in those parts because of his turn as a slugger at LSU — put two bits of news on the Zephyr Field scoreboard. First, he drove in Triple-A Memphis first run in a 2-0 victory. And then a short time later …

Well, here’s how the official release from the New Orleans Zephyrs put it:

Stavinoha, a former…