After watching the Cards flail helpless at the plate against no-name Mets pitching, fans might be wondering what Oakland A’s outfielder Matt Holliday is up to.

Not so much, as it turns out.

He has two RBI in his last 17 games. He hasn’t hit a home run since June 5.

Holliday has drawn some walks (34) and stolen a few bases (eight) this season, but he is batting .269 with eight homers and 39 RBI in the clean-up spot in Oakland. Those numbers would NOT translate into iron-clad protection for Albert Pujols.

And yet Holliday will be the No. 1 trade target next month when the A’s hold their annual talent auction before the trade deadline.

(On the other hand, one of the players A’s mastermind Billy Beane traded to get Holliday, reliever Huston Street, could offer more current trade value than Holliday. Street has converted 16 of 17 save opportunities for the streaking Rockies.)

THE SHAQ ON LAKE ERIE

The Cavaliers managed to pull off that deal for Shaquille O’Neal, setting the stage for great NBA fun during the 2009-2010 season. The Big Aristotle’s job will be to get LeBron James get past Superman, Dwight Howard, and the rest of the Eastern Conference.

Shaq’s task is to deliver the LeBron-Kobe showdown fans clamored for this season. FoxSports.com columnist Mark Kriegel offered this take:

Every storyline is heightened, from New York to Los Angeles. Will this be enough for Cleveland to get past Orlando? How about Boston? Will it be enough for LeBron James to stay? Even as these questions are answered, the more hypothetical discussions promise to become even more vitriolic. There’s still Shaq vs. Kobe, Shaq vs. Dwight Howard, Shaq vs. Stan Van Gundy, and most revealing but least remarked on, Shaq vs. Father Time.

He’s the exception here. Ordinarily, the pressure would be on a guy like James, the young star in his prime. But O’Neal has been talking so loud for so long, he doesn’t get to play with house money. The burden of proof is on him.

At the very top tier of NBA life, players seem to have forsaken the sillier forms of rivalry — salaries, cars, groupies — for the more meaningful ones. Guys like Kobe, LeBron and Shaq, just to name a few, are clearly playing for their legacies.

Let’s hope he takes his conditioning more seriously than he has in the past.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while trying, unsuccessfully, to locate a positive note about the Cardinals’ Wednesday night loss:

• When, exactly, did Fernando Nieve become the Next Juan Marichal?
• Is it time for Josh Kinney to re-think that mustache?
• Can you believe Hollywood wanted to make a movie about “Moneyball,” a book glorifying the general manager of a perennial also-run?
• Why would Brad Pitt sign up for that project after reading the script?

SAD NEWS AT WIMBLEDON

Not only did Maria Sharapova exit in the second round, but the Tennis Gods are cracking down on the traditional female tennis grunt. In a nutshell, here is what fans will miss as a result:

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Steve Rosenbloom, ChicagoSports.com, predicting labor unrest: “The owners hate losing, no matter that they ought to be used to it. The owners also have egos and arrogance. They believe they own the game and all the people and money in it. If they felt otherwise, there would be a commissioner instead of a sock puppet. So, you can easily see the owners plotting to battle (Donald) Fehr’s successor, likely to the detriment of the game. I’m not saying it makes sense. I’m just saying it’s what they do.”

Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle: “Yankee Stadium is a homer heaven partly because it’s smaller. The wall in right field is shorter than the old wall, and the new wall doesn’t curve like the old wall, so it’s closer to home. The N.Y. Daily News held a new-nickname contest. Winner: Jack-in-the Bronx. I would have submitted EZ-Park Park, or The House That Someone Who Flunked Out of Engineering School Built, or Yanker Stadium.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Auto-industry cutbacks already are beginning to significantly affect NASCAR. Mark Martin won last week’s race in Michigan driving a Hertz rental car.”

Richard Sandomir, New York Times: “Networks don’t want majors to be won by golfers like Lucas Glover. Casual fans couldn’t tell him from John Glover, who plays the leashed and downtrodden Lucky in the Broadway revival of ‘Waiting for Godot.’ Monday was really about Waiting for the Collapse of Glover, and, even more so, Ricky Barnes.”

MEGAPHONE

“There’s a lot of season left, but as good as the Dodgers are playing right now and if you look at what wild-card teams have done in the past - some have won the World Series - the important thing is just to get to the playoffs. Considering the struggles of this organization in recent years (four straight losing seasons), if you’re getting in via the wild card, it would be pretty exciting for the team, the ownership and the fans. You get there however you get there. Then every playoff team starts from scratch.”

Giants pitcher Randy Johnson.