"After a week of games here, Lance Berkman is one off Skip Schumaker's team lead in hits and is first on the club in runs scored. The figures are modest, mind you, at six and five, respectively, but the point is that the player Cardinals fans might have been most concerned about coming out of spring training surely has allayed a few of those fears.

"I feel like I've been swinging the bat pretty well," said Berkman, hitting .300 for six games. "I'm not in midseason form. I haven't had a lot of RBIs (one)."

No one else on the Cardinals has either, of course. And Berkman can see the fans wondering, "Is that going to be a trend?" But Berkman then said, "As a veteran, you just have to look at the track record and say we have the personnel."

The term "track record" could be applied to Berkman individually. He has been a .296 career hitter, even with his .248 combined mark with Houston and the New York Yankees last year, after he had knee surgery March 13.

But after being bothered by elbow and calf problems that he incurred at the start of spring training this year, Berkman hit just .182 in the exhibition season and played only the last couple of weeks or so in the outfield. The inevitable questions arose.

"I'm not that concerned," said Berkman. "If I do (what he's done so far) the whole year, everyone would consider that a great season.

"I expect to hit. I don't know why I wouldn't. I know maybe the last couple of years haven't been as good as I was four or five years ago. But there's no reason why I can't be a good, productive hitter.

"I'm relatively healthy, which I haven't been in a while."

Hitting coach Mark McGwire, whose career with the Cardinals came to an abrupt end after the 2001 season when he really could never shake a bad knee that he had in the spring, has a reference point."