JUPITER, Fla. — With the first off day of spring training here for the St. Louis Cardinals, there’s time to ride some tangents — when you’re not riding the birthday boy’s “tsunami,” that is.

While working on a blog entry that you will see up in this space shortly about outfielder Colby Rasmus and how to read the recently released Baseball America Top 100 Prospects, I was intrigued by how BA took the depth charts us correspondents file…

TOWER GROVE — With less than one month to go before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, there are more than 150 free agents still on the market, including, amazingly, the National League’s starting pitcher from this past year’s All-Star Game, Ben Sheets. From the pool of free agents still out there, It is possible to put together an imposing lineup, with an All-Star at each position, and outfit a pretty compelling rotation.

Not to…

TOWER GROVE — By definition, any list of the top 10 or top 30 prospects within the St. Louis Cardinals system is flawed. The concept itself has one glaring weakness: Cardinals prospects are compared only against Cardinals prospects, leaving the reader to wonder if a top-10 talent here is a top-five talent in Cleveland? Maybe a top 20 talent in Boston … and so on.

Rankings prospects within an organization has value. It just doesn’t have…

LAS VEGAS — In their past 420 games, a stretch that reaches all the way back deep into that golden season of 2006, the St. Louis Cardinals have had a grand total of ZERO games started and won by a lefthanded pitcher.

Since Mark Mulder won his start on June 15, 2006, the Cardinals have trotted out Mike Maroth, Randy Keisler, Jaime Garcia and Mulder (a few times) to make starts. That group has made 15 starts total…

TOWER GROVE — Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella, who guided the denizens of Wrigley Field to a league-best 97-64 record and their first back-to-back playoff appearances since 1908, won the National League Manager of the Year award in a vote of baseball writers announced this afternoon. The award is Piniella’s third Manager of the Year award, putting him one behind the record — jointly held by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and Atlanta…

TOWER GROVE — It doesn’t take much more than a box score or a glance at the season-ending statistics to know that if the Cardinals reduced their late-inning drama — some would say trauma — they are in contention until the final week, if not having a workout day today.

When it came to finishing games, the Cardinals reed relief this offseason.

In this, the 601st post at Bird Land since the re-design,  we begin a season…

CHICAGO — The National League Central woke up this morning with four teams that had winning records and one club, the Chicago Cubs, poised to runaway with the division title, possibly winning it by at least 10 games. It is, arguably, the toughest division in baseball (the AL East objects!), and inarguably the toughest neighborhood in the National League.

“I said at the beginning of the year, we were going to get everybody’s attention,” manager Tony…

DOWNTOWN — Had one groundball turned out differently, had it not slipped through his hands as rapidly and frustratingly as the save did a few moments later, maybe the questions would have been different.

But Tuesday is another blown save for the Cardinals’ bullpen — No. 27, for those keeping score — and means another inquisition for the club’s closer, Jason Isringhausen.

Isringhausen entered his second save opportunity since returning to the role with a three-run lead…

TOWER GROVE — The difference between the fastest baserunner and best baserunner is the difference between, say, Michael Bourn and Scott Rolen, Willy Taveras and Larry Walker.

Fast doesn’t not always mean best when it comes to rounding second.

The best baserunner can be more likely to take third on a single than he is to steal second on the pitcher. Sometimes best and fastest are one in the same, and often fast is enough to make…

TOWER GROVE — Each year at about this time, Baseball America sends out a list of “tools” and its faithful correspondents to take a poll of each manager in the majors for the top three in each league at each tool.

The totals are used for the annual “Best Tools” issue of the magazine, one of my favorites and annually one that is well-read in the clubhouse.

The survey is simple. There are 25 tools listed and…

TOWER GROVE — The C.C. Sabathia era in Milwaukee was barely a few innings old this evening and the ink wasn’t yet dry on the news reports of the Cubs acquiring Rich Harden when one of the Brewers’ broadcasters said something to this effect:

“Your move Cardinals.”

The jockeying for supremacy in the National League Central bounded out of the standings and into the front offices the past two days, as the Cardinals chief rivals added potential…

TOWER GROVE — The timing might have been as awkward as the inquiry, but Aaron Miles was game after last night’s loss to consider a question about the Cardinals recently called-out offense: Would it surprise him that they topped the league in scoring during June?

“Really?” Miles said. “I don’t know. I guess, I guess it does. It seems like so many of the questions the last few weeks have been about the guys left on-base….

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…

TOWER GROVE — One thing about a player being on base all the time: he gets loads of practice running them and has plenty of opportunity to excel — and fail. Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols showed this past week that he can pound out the headlines with more than just his bat; carrying a big stick does not require always walking softly.

In the span of a few games, Pujols showed the plus and minus of his…

TOWER GROVE — If there is a game so far in this season when Adam Wainwright deleted all of the fancy adjectives we’ve been attaching to ace in front of his name — de facto, budding, pro tempore, fill-in, stand-in and, my personal favorite, proxy — and just became the Cardinals’ ace it was his 126-pitch start Saturday against Houston.

He didn’t have his best stuff. He wasn’t dominant.

But he won with what he had, and…