The St. Louis Cardinals are now 9-11 in May, and they've been visited by enough bad news to keep us in terrified-fantasy-baseball-owner search traffic through July. Lance Berkman is hurt, possibly severely; Carlos Beltran isn't the perfectly healthy base-thief he played on TV for most of April; Allen Craig is aching, Jon Jay is still dealing with a shoulder injury, and the Cardinals' best options in center field are Skip Schumaker and Shane Robinson. But the Cardinals won last night, in last fall's especially implausible fashion, and these next few-hundred words are for the good news that implausible win has allowed us to consider.

Lance Berkman! He maybe didn't tear his ACL! The Cardinals, when slightly healthier than they are now, have so many potentially cromulent slugging corner players that it's easy to underestimate the on-the-field value of having Berkman and Craig around instead of Craig and Carpenter or Adams. But if he really does just need six weeks the Cardinals have—for once, this May—managed to reduce the number of replacement-level innings it looks like they'll need to hand out this year.

Matt Adams! Short of Mike Matheny going full Brandon Belt on him, in the wake of the potentially good Berkman news the Cardinals really can't lose on this Matt Adams call-up. The worst-case scenarios: He hits too well and it's hard to send him down when Lance Berkman comes back; he doesn't hit at all and Matt Carpenter, who's earned some at-bats by now, settles in as Berkman's backup again.

(Speaking of which, Matt Carpenter! deserves his own exclamation point—he's still confusing, because he doesn't resembleat all the walk-taking machine that plate-disciplined his way through Springfield and Memphis, but he's hitting even better in May than he did in April. Maybe he's the poor man's Kevin Youkilis, and this particular skill-set just doesn't reach the majors in the way we expect it will?)

Tyler Greene! and Tyler Greene's Competitors! As DiscoJer noted in the gamethread, Tyler Greene's huge night upgraded his seasonal line from my eternal hope for his ceiling—Rob Deer, Shortstop (.227/.301/.427)—to Gorman Thomas, Shortstop (.253/.322/.494.) The best part of all this is that his Rob Deer line was already suspiciously close to a league-average hitting performance, regardless of position. Greene probably isn't an .800 OPS guy, but the hope all along from his AAA numbers has been that he could be average to average-plus; so far he's been there, and we should be excited about it.

A lot could still go wrong with Greene, who was being talked up as a DFA candidate this time last month, but his hot start shows us just how much we still have to learn about him as a major leaguer. His career line through 2011, the one that made him look so AAAA, was .218/.307/.313; 80 strong at-bats have pushed that up to .225/.310/.349.

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The St. Louis Cardinals entered Monday night's series opener against the San Diego Padres in the midst of a four-game losing streak, the second such streak in the club's last ten games. The Cards appeared set to squander an excellent outing from starter Jaime Garcia when Tyler Greene blasted a two-run home run to right-center field that put the Cardinals in the lead for good and kept St. Louis alone atop the National League Central standings.

Garcia put together a solid start on the evening. The southpaw scattered seven hits and gave up only one run over seven innings. Garcia notched seven strikeouts to only one walk. Despite only allowing a single run, Garcia was on the hook for the pitching "loss" due to a lack of run support.

Entering the bottom of the seventh inning, the Padres led 1-0. Greene started the rally off with a single. After Shane Robinson grounded out, Garcia helped his cause with a single of his own. With runners on the corners, Rafael Furcal singled home Greene, who was the tying run. A Matt Carpenter groundout plated Garcia, which gave the Cardinals their first lead of the game and put Garcia in line for a pitching "win."

Garcia gave up a leadoff double to start the visiting half of the eighth and was promptly lifted for Mitchell Boggs, who induced a groundout and strikeout before giving way to Marc Rzcepczynski. The lefty known as "Scrabble" walked the left-handed hitting Yonder Alonso and was replaced by Jason Motte to face Jose Guzman. Guzman rapped a 96-MPH fastball for a double that scored two runs and gave San Diego the lead.

In the bottom of the eighth, Carlos Beltran led off with a strikeout. Yadier Molina then singled to center to breath life into the rally. Rookie Matt Adams then struck out for the second out of the inning. In stepped Greene. After starting the rally in the seventh, the second baseman ended one in the eighth with the game-winning two-run dinger.

The homer was Greene's third hit of the game. Greene notched two ribbies and scored two runs in the game to go with his three hits. Such performances are becoming a hallmark of sorts for Greene with tonight's three-hit game marked the third such game in the month of May. The last one occurred on May 15 against the Cubs, an effort that commenced a hot streak during which Greene has notched eight hits.

The Cardinals and Padres are slated to square off in the second game of the series tomorrow night at 7:15 CDT when Adam Wainwright squares off against Edinson Volquez.

Lance Berkman's season is not yet over and neither is his career. Berkman underwent a magnetic resonance image study on Monday in St. Louis. BJ Rains of Fox Sports Midwest tweets that the scan revealed a torn meniscus but not a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), which was the initial diagnosis by Dodgers trainers as reported by Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The final diagnosis is still up in the air, however, as Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch tweets that damage to the ACL cannot be ruled out until after a second test that will take place later this week.

Jennifer Langosch of stlcardinals.com reported after Berkman left Saturday night's game that the slugger felt the pain was different from his prior ACL injury. While leaving open any final diagnosis until after tests were performed, Berkman stated that he felt he had "a little meniscus ding." In his next breath, Berkman said, "How bad? I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see." After an MRI, the "meniscus ding" has been confirmed but we're still going to have to wait and see what the second test reveals for a final diagnosis.

Berkman's 2012 season has taken place in fits and starts. A nagging calf injury relegated him to the bench and then the disabled list. Berkman only played in 13 games and totaled a mere 49 plate appearances before his knee injury. In the few PAs he had, he showed no sign of slowing down by posting a line of .333/.429/.571. Berkman appeared to be entering one of those patented Puma grooves when he suffered the the knee injury. In the wake of his injury, Berkman openly entertained the idea of retirement if he faced another major knee surgery. After today's report, it seems that no such surgery may be necessary and Berkman may yet play again in 2012.

Signed for a mere $8 million before the 2011 season to play right field on his balky knees, Berkman was a steal for the Cardinals. The veteran switch-hitter played in 145 games and posted a line of .301/.412/.547 with 31 home runs and 94 RBI. His .402 wOBA led the Cardinals even if his poor outfield defense caused his 5.0 fWAR to finish tied for second-best on the team with Matt Holliday just one-tenth of a win behind Albert Pujols. It looks like the Cardinals may yet see his prolific bat return to the lineup this 2012 season. But, Berkman is more than just a good player.

In addition to the production, there are the intangibles. Berkman has a penchant for giving quotes to the media that are candid and often funny; it is a combination that is undeniably endearing. The man who once gave himself the nickname "Big Puma" also grew a stunning playoff beard and then joked that the gray-flecked beard made him look like a calico cat, which was cool.

The calico-bearded Berkman put together his best performance of the postseason against the Rangers in the World Series. While David Freese has deservedly been crowned the postseason hero, the Cardinals would not have won the franchise's eleventh World Series without Puma. Berkman hit .423/.516/.577 in the series and had his best game in the dramatic sixth game of the series. The veteran switch-hitter rapped out three hits (including a game-tying homer in the first), knocked in three runs, and scored four runs. With a Rangers series victory one pitch away in the tenth inning of Game 6, lined a single to center field that plated two runs, tied the game, and forced that fateful eleventh inning. Sandwiched between Freese's game-tying triple and game-winning homer, Berkman's single has faded in the memory of many fans, but the Rangers would be champions today were it not for Puma's heroics.

Injury Could End Berkman's Career

The Cardinals’ Lance Berkman left Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers with a knee injury and after the game he couldn’t even put weight on the leg in the clubhouse.

Now, a report from Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the injury could be worse than originally suspected:

Berkman advanced the possibility of having merely torn his meniscus Saturday night. Sunday he still exhibited acute stiffness around the knee. "I really can’t do anything," he lamented.

Sources familiar with Saturday’s preliminary examination by two Dodgers team doctors said Sunday that an ACL tear is suspected.

Berkman, placed on the disabled list Sunday morning, recognized that his next game may be a long time off.

If this turns out to be true, it could mean the end of Berkman’s career:

"You think about it when you have a potentially major surgery at this stage of your career," he said. "… I don’t think it’s one of those deals where you sit out a week and see where you are. I think it’s much more serious than that."

MRI results with a definitive diagnosis are expected later Monday.

Matt Adams, Matt Carpenter, and Allen Craig (when he returns from the disabled list) all provide potential internal options to replace Berkman.

The Cardinals lost 6-5 to the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine last night on Sunday Night Baseball. The game was the final one of the club's five-game west coast swing. It started at 7:05 PM CDT and did not get done until late in the evening for folks in the central time zone. After the game, the Cardinals talked to the media, showered, perhaps dressed up in tacky tuxedos, and then flew back to St. Louis where they will play the Padres tonight at 7:15 PM CDT.

As fans, I think it's easy for us to forget about the grind baseball players put themselves through over the course of a season. Even though they are professional athletes in great shape, playing a game in St. Louis on Tuesday afternoon and then flying to San Francisco for a game on Wednesday night can't be easy. And it seems particularly grueling to then play an evening game in Los Angeles on Sunday night before flying back to St. Louis for a game on Monday night without a day off. This got me to wondering whether the turnaround from Sunday night's game in Los Angeles and tonight's game in St. Louis is the worst the Cardinals have on the 2012 schedule.

I decided to take a look at the Cardinals' getaway days this season, the amount of distance traveled on the flight to the next game, and the amount of time between games in order to get an idea of the most grueling two-game combinations on the schedule. The results are after the jump.

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