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…

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…

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…

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…

TOWER GROVE — What with two dugout-clearing donnybrooks this weekend and the ever-agitating Chicago Cubs coming to town this weekend with first place possibly up for grabs, this little island of three games against Cincinnati seemed so quaint, so tranquil.

Then Walt Jocketty used a most curious word.

Vendetta.

“Trust me,” he said at the press conference announcing his hiring as general manager of the Reds. “Me and (manager Dusty Baker) are very motivated. We’re…

TOWER GROVE — The Cardinals jet off on their first road trip of the season having let so few of their opposing hitters take flight at all this season. Much has been made of the Cardinals rotation’s sub-1.00 ERA through six games and the staff as a whole has an ERA of 1.83, better than every team in baseball save the LA Dodgers and their 1.70.

That’s the macro picture. The micro is even more…

(THE FILIBUSTER) JUPITER, Fla. — The only times Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has batted the pitcher eighth is when his team has been struggling and, cynics argue, when it offers a red herring, a distraction from the performance on the field.

The manager might quibble with the cynics — always does. But while he believes it’s the best way to build a National League lineup, he concedes he has only done it when his team is scuffling. Earlier this…

JUPITER, Fla. — In the fallout of baseball’s nuclear winter of steroid revelations, apologies and denials, spring training has added a new tradition.

It’s the Mitchell moment.

During the first weeks of spring training, a handful of teams have had a player mentioned in the Mitchell Report arrive and answer a salvo of questions about being cited in the record of baseball’s Steroid Era. If it appears like more of those stories are coming out of Cardinals…

JUPITER, Fla. — If the Cardinals wanted to bundle all of the ways to strum Kyle McClellan’s nerves in his “debut” as a starting pitcher, they couldn’t have been more successful than Friday’s live batting practice session.

McClellan, making the switch from bullpen to rotation, was throwing in front of pitching coach Dave Duncan, with an owner and front-office execs looking on, at catcher Yadier Molina, and — the coup de grace — to hitter…

TOWER GROVE — A brief detour before we plunge back into the Decisions (in) 2008 facing the Cardinals. It’s a topic sure to be watched, analyzed and debated all summer long. After a offseason of shedding its stars, the Cardinals almost beg the question themselves:

What former Cardinal is set to have the biggest year with his new team?

There are many candidates; most are of the comeback variety. Will Scott Rolen’s healthier mood mean a healthier shoulder…