Defending world champions wallowing in mediocrity

	Anthony Reyes has been unable to build on his World Series success, having lost seven of his eight starts this season. Frank Orris/WireImage.com

The problem with the Cardinals this year is that they're way too much like the Cardinals of last year. Except older. With nowhere near the pitching. Or hitting. Or, come to think about it, the defense, either.

Other than that, the '07 Cardinals are just like the '06 Cards, a team that, we shouldn't forget, wasn't real good in the first place. Those Cards won only 83 games, had a sub-.500 second half (including losses in 10 of their final 14 games) and yet, thanks to the grace of a particularly awful division, still weaseled their way into the playoffs. Last year's Cardinals may well have been the worst team ever to win a World Series.

That, as it's turning out, is a lot more than this St. Louis team will ever be able to say. The '07 Cards are a collection of stumbling used-to-be superstars, misfits, barely complementary players, scrubs, fill-in starters, one-dimensional players and Albert Pujols, the so-far slumping franchise centerpiece that, by every indication, should still be a superstar. Right now, the Cards look as inept as any World Series champ ever has. Even the '03 Angels, who finished with just 77 wins the year after they won the Series, were at .500 at this point of the season. The '07 Cards go to sleep dreaming about .500.

Given last season's regular-season struggles, the Cardinals were going to have a difficult time anyway. When starters Jeff Suppan, Jason Marquis and Jeff Weaver left in a disastrous offseason, any discussion of a repeat started sounding laughably optimistic. When ace Chris Carpenter landed on the disabled list with a bad elbow after his Opening Day start -- he's not expected back before mid-August, at the earliest -- only the reddest-blooded members of Cardinal Nation wearing the rosiest-colored glasses held out any hope.

Now, even that's about gone. The Cardinals are floundering, in just about every way that a team can flounder.

Let's point some fingers...

Jim Edmonds -- The eight-time Gold Glove-winning center fielder is off to a horrendous start, not only at the plate -- where he's hitting (if you want to call it that) .222, with a .302 slugging percentage -- but in the field. Last Sunday in the final game of a weekend rematch of the '06 World Series against the Tigers, Edmonds got late breaks and took terrible routes on a couple of fly balls that fell in for hits. Afterward, manager Tony La Russa criticized his player's gaffes.

Scott Rolen -- The 32-year-old third baseman, who had his run-ins with La Russa last season, can't hit for anything so far, batting .215 with a .622 OPS. (His career OPS, a combination of slugging and on-base percentages, is .883.) He still has healthy strikeout-to-walk numbers -- 19 whiffs to go with 15 walks -- but he's simply not hitting. He has only two homers and nine extra-base hits.

Pujols -- Through his first 40 games last year, when he finished second to the Phillies' Ryan Howard in the MVP voting, the Cardinals' first baseman was hitting .319, with 20 home runs, 50 RBIs and a 1.248 OPS. This year, in his first 40 games, Pujols hit .267, with seven homers, 23 RBIs and an .816 OPS. He still doesn't strike out much, and his walks are there, which shows that his approach isn't terribly different. But he's hit just one home run in his past 20 games. And he's hitting a mortal .276, more than 50 points below his career average.

Edmonds and Rolen behind Pujols -- You can argue the true value of "protection" in a lineup, but right now it's clear that, with Edmonds and Rolen splitting duty in the cleanup spot behind Pujols, opposing pitchers are not exactly quaking in their spikes once they work their way past the big first baseman. Last year, the No. 4 hitters for the Cards (mostly Rolen) batted .308, with a .910 OPS. This year, it's .186 with a .532 OPS, both the worst marks in the National League.