The St. Louis Cardinals have used a trio of second basemen this year as they’ve muddled to a 58-49 record heading into play Sunday that mirrors the mess the team has at the second-base position.

It’s time for the Cardinals to make a playoff push, but to do so they will also need a regular second baseman who plays fantastic defense and can get a key hit when necessary. That player is Daniel Descalso.

Descalso was a key part to the Cardinals 2011 run to the World Series championship, and he could play an even more important role this year if manager Mike Matheny gives him the chance.

Descalso has always played stellar defense, and he has flashed the leather lately. He filled in at shortstop for Rafeal Furcal for five games last week against the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies. In those games he made two outstanding defensive plays. He also had six hits during the weekend agains the Milwaukee Brewers and made a couple more fabulous diving plays.

Part of the Cardinals troubles this year have stemmed from their inconsistency in the field. The Cardinals have committed 69 errors and their fielding percentage ranks 17th in Major League Baseball. Beyond the errors, there have been countless plays fielders simply haven’t made. They don’t count as an error, but the runner still gets on base or takes an extra base and quickly ends up in scoring position.

Sure, Descalso is hitting just .241 on the season, but he gets hits when they matter most. He is hitting .281 in the late innings of close games. Of regular starters, only Furcal and Yadier Molina have a higher batting average in those situations.

The other option for the Cardinals at second base is Skip Schumaker. He is hitting .319 on the season and plays solid defense. Unfortunately, both Descalso and Schumaker bat left-handed. That means Tyler Greene continues to get at-bats when the Cardinals face a left-handed pitcher even though he is hitting .222.

Greene has long been an enigma for the Cardinals and their fans. The Cardinals drafted Greene in the first round back in 2005, but he has failed to hit above his current .222 batting average in any of his four seasons with the club.

Yes, Greene has speed. He has stolen nine bases and been caught just twice, but he doesn’t get on base enough to utilize that speed. Also, when he gets on base he sometimes tries to do too much. He has twice been thrown out at the plate to end a game this season.

So, while Schumaker has the better offensive numbers, Descalso has the intangibles that help a team win ballgames.

Descalso doesn’t have to be the starting second baseman for the entire final two months of the season, but he does need to be on the field more often than not if the Cardinals are going to make a run at either the NL Central title or a wild-card berth.

If not, the frustrating inconsistent play that has plagued the first four months of the Cardinals 2012 season will prevent the team from making a run at the playoffs in the final two months.

The St. Louis Cardinals lost a huge part of their offense when Albert Pujols signed a 10-year, $240-million deal with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but that also forced the team to build a more balanced lineup. Now every spot in the order consistently pushes across enough runs to put the Cardinals atop the NL Central as April comes to a close.

But, the margin for error is much slimmer without Pujols. There were times during the last decade when Pujols basically won an entire game with his bat. If it was a close game late, Cardinals fans always felt like the team had a chance to win as long as Pujols got another at-bat.

That’s no longer the case. The 2012 Cardinals have to string together multiple hits to score runs in bunches, but they have done surprisingly well to start the season. From shortstop Rafeal Furcal to centerfielder Jon Jay, each part of the lineup is contributing to give the Cardinals a .278 team batting average, which is the best in the National League.

Hopefully, the increased responsibility on each spot in the order will make this team more slump-proof than previous Cardinals teams. Pujols could mask a bunch of deficiencies in a lineup, but there were times when he would be the only hitter consistently producing runs. So far this season, Cardinals hitters have done an excellent job of picking each other up and getting base hits to keep the line moving.

For example, the Cardinals smashed the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night with 13 runs, but they didn’t particularly smash the ball. Instead, the Cardinals laced together 15 hits, and only four went for extra bases with no homeruns.

I’m not saying the Cardinals can’t hit homers. They sit second in the National League with 24 homeruns, but they also have the consistency to manufacture runs without the long ball. That, combined with the excellent starting pitching the team is getting from its starting rotation, could make the Cardinals quite a force during the course of the season in the National League.

All of those offensive topics are even sweeter considering Pujols is still searching for his first homerun as an Angel, going 21 games to start the season without a homer.

In fact, the Cardinals likely have the most complete team in the division despite preseason concerns that the Cincinnati Reds might have more firepower. The Reds’ pitching staff has some significant holes.

Johnny Cueto has been fantastic to lead the staff with a 3-0 record and 1.39 ERA, but he is the only starter in the Reds rotation to have more than one win. Mat Latos, Mike Leake, Bronson Arroyo and Homer Bailey have a combined 3-7 record with a 4.65 ERA.

The Cardinals rotation, by contrast, has an ERA of 2.81, and that’s while carrying Adam Wainwright’s 7.32 ERA.

Cardinals fans could not have realistically expected a better first month to the season, and fortunately there is plenty to be excited about over the course of the next five months.

Less than two weeks into its championship-defending season and key St. Louis Cardinals are already suffering injuries. While that will likely raise Cardinals’ fans blood pressure, these injuries should not cause panic, yet.

Photo Courtesy of Erika Lynn

First baseman Lance Berkman suffered a calf strain while legging out a triple Tuesday in Cincinnati and has not played since. On the other side of the diamond, third baseman David Freese had an issue with one of his fingers during an at bat Friday against the Chicago Cubs and was a late scratch for Saturday’s game.

Long-term injuries to both of these players would be major blows to the Cardinals, but the team does have a good starting rotation and it does have players to fill gaps if bigger injuries crop up during the season.

Matt Carpenter has filled in for Berkman at first base while Berkman has been out this week. Carpenter is a good player, but he is not the answer at first base for the Cardinals. The best answer to fill Berkman’s spot might be Allen Craig.

Craig had a sensational postseason in 2011 and showed he could be a consistent offensive force while playing several positions throughout a season. Craig could certainly play first base, or third base for that matter, and the Cardinals would likely not see a dropoff at the plate or in the field.

The other Cardinals utility player who could fill a gap created by an injury is Daniel Descalso. Descalso is a very solid fielder and started the season for the Cardinals at second base ahead of Tyler Greene. Descalso also came up with several key hits for the Cardinals last season down the stretch and into the playoffs.

However, the key to all of that is to get Craig healthy. I’m not convinced Greene is the answer at second base or shortstop if Rafeal Furcal gets hurt. Many people have said Greene didn’t play well because of former manager Tony La Russa’s style. That’s a nice theory, but he is going to have to start showing consistent production to prove he’s not just a great college player at Georgia Tech who was drafted in the first round in 2005 but couldn’t produce in the major leagues.

The Cardinals do expect to get Craig and Skip Schumaker back early in the season, and that is the depth the team desperately needs with a lineup that includes four players age 32 or older.

La Russa was always great at getting maximum production from his bench players, and this isn’t to say new manager Mike Matheny won’t do the same. Still, Craig and Schumaker are much less of a dropoff from Berkman and Freese than Carpenter and Descalso and/or Greene.

This is a team that could be a strong World Series contender if its starting lineup and pitching staff stay healthy, but with an older team that if is even more pronounced than it has been for many recent Cardinals teams.

While early injuries are never good, fans can take solace that these are minor injuries and the Cardinals will have the depth to sustain some injuries to position players throughout the season. The pitching staff’s depth might be another story, especially with Chris Carpenter’s injury, but hopefully those questions don’t have to be asked and the staff remains healthy.

Optimism reigned the day following the St. Louis Cardinals’ 11th World Series championship, but three months later that optimism might turn to skepticism.

The Cardinals had just won one of the most dramatic World Series ever played on October 28, and it looked like the team might bring back the entire coaching staff and nearly the entire roster.

At that point St. Louis celebrated the championship with a parade on the Sunday following Game 7, and many people thought things would only get better in 2012 because the team had gelled so well toward the end of the 2011 season.

The next morning everything changed, and the fallout has continued all the way into the first week of January.

Tony La Russa announced his retirement Oct. 31, leaving the Cardinals in a spot where they had to find a new manager for the first time in 16 years.

So one big piece of the 2011 championship puzzle left, but surely the Cardinals would make a smart decision and find a new manager who fit in well with the current structure of the team and everything would still be all right.

I’m not saying hiring Mike Matheny was a bad decision at all. The Cardinals made a smart, calculated decision when they hired him and any criticism of that move before the season starts is unfounded.

But, then Albert Pujols left to sign with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Dec. 8, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the Cardinals lineup and on their team. Pujols had been the premier Cardinals player for a decade. That type of player doesn’t get replaced immediately no matter what move the team makes the rest of the offseason.

With Allen Craig out for the start of the season because of offseason surgery, the Cardinals suddenly had a hole in right field with Lance Berkman moving to first base.

The team used the money it saved by not signing Pujols to sign outfielder Carlos Beltran, 34, and resign shortstop Rafeal Furcal, also 34.

While those moves may have filled the positions on the field, it is a real stretch to say the Cardinals should be better in 2012. Remember, this team didn’t even win its division last year, and now possibly the best pitching coach in the history of the game, Dave Duncan, has taken a leave of absence.

That means the Cardinals will return on Opening Day with nearly an entirely different coaching staff and middle of the lineup.

Sure, starting pitcher Adam Wainwright will be back to lead the rotation, but there are other teams in the NL Central that are younger, have good starting rotations and have more potential than the Cardinals in 2012.

This isn’t to say the Cardinals won’t be highly competitive this coming season. The Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates will likely still lease the bottom half of the division for another year. The Milwaukee Brewers also have lots of troubles with first baseman Prince Fielder expected to leave and left fielder Ryan Braun out for the first 50 games because of a suspension for using a banned substance.

All things considered, the Cincinnati Reds might be the team that walks into the season as the favorite in the division. This is a young team with a powerful middle of the lineup, and MVP at first base and a pitching staff that continues to progress.

The Reds are just one year removed from winning the NL Central in 2010, their core players have another year of maturity under their belt and the pitching staff looks better on paper for 2012 than it did in 2010.

The addition of Mat Latos and maybe Aroldis Chapman to the starting rotation along with the returns of Johnny Cueto, Bronson Arroyo, Mike Leake will almost certainly keep the Reds in strong contention throughout the season.

Plus, a rotation with Latos and Chapman looks better than the one that included Aaron Harang, Homer Bailey and Travis Wood in 2010 when the team won 91 games.

With hitters such as Pujols and Fielder leaving their respective teams, the NL Central will likely be down on power in 2012. The Reds have a solid rotation but will also likely send out a more-powerful lineup than the rest of the division.

That could put the Reds in a better position than anybody in the NL Central, including the defending world-champion Cardinals, to make a run to the postseason.

No longer to be known as LaGenius, moving forward Tony will now be referred to as LaMagician. No matter which side of the LaRussa fence you sit one you have to admit he’s one crafty old dude. Maneuvering through a press conference with grace of an elephant yet somehow able to keep reporters’ questions and thought away from the real issue.

Slight of hand is a key element in any magic trick. A good magician will show his audience the elephant he is going to make disappear then distract them with excited movement and speech. In the end the elephant is gone but you don’t really know what happened. The crowd leaves one part amazed and another part confused.

Monday night’s press conference TLR put on his best David Copperfield. Making the elephant in the room (Cardinals 1-12 with RISP, 12 runners left on base and 2 runs scored despite being issue 9 BB’s) disappear, by focusing everyone’s attention on the fact that bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist cannot decipher between Motte, Rzepczynski and Lynn.

Simply check out Twitter, ESPN, Fox Sports, Facebook or any number of outlets and you’ll find that 98% of all conversation pertains to the ridiculous bullpen incident from game five and not the Cardinals lack of production and execution in the critical moments.

Like him or not, one of the main reasons guys state they like playing for TLR is he will defend them to the death and to his own fault. Monday night is a perfect example. NO ONE is talking about RISP fail, no all the talk is about how game five may have been the worst managed of Tony’s career. It is all about TLR fail.

In all reality we should be sitting around discussing why it took TLR four games to realize the 0-14 Jon Jay might need to sit. Or that Furcal and Holliday are a combined 6-38 with 7 strikeouts and no RBI through five games. The Cardinals are coming home for two games with a chance to win the World Series and no one seems alarmed that the best player of the last decade has hits in only one of five games.

The fact that St. Louis still has a shot with early World Series MVP favorite Allen Craig now 0-9 with five strikeouts since his home run in the 1^st inning of game five. LaMagician has made it all seem to disappear with one swipe of his hands.

Hopefully his greatest magic trick still lies ahead. If Tony can somehow work his magic on the Cardinal hitters the way he did with the bullpen, turning them into the monster of October, we’ll be standing curbside as the parade heads down Market St.

If not…LaMagician better have one more trick up his sleeve. To convince the masses that blowing a 2-1 series lead of which the Cardinals were seemingly in command of from the opening pitch of game 1 never happened.

As always these are just my thoughts…keep on reading and you’ll get up to speed.

Derek is on Twitter @SportsbyWeeze and also writes for the Rams at RamsHerd.com

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