"Back in the lineup Sunday after missing most of the week with a shoulder ailment, Lance Berkman said when the calendar flipped to August this morning there are few things that should keep him from batting fifth.

"I'm back until I can't walk back out there," the switch-hitting veteran said. "This is when you go to the whip."

For the second time this season, Berkman returned from receiving a cortisone shot to crack a home run in his first game. His three-run homer extended his league-leading total to 28 homers and it provided all of the runs the Cardinals scored in a 6-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs and their starter, Ryan Dempster. Afterward, Berkman took quick measure of the Cardinals' 54 remaining games, their 2 1/2-game deficit in the standings and a schedule that does not require them, weather permitting, to play more than 10 games in a row until the final two weeks of the regular season. By his math, he should play in all of the remaining games.

With Berkman back, Sunday was the first time in the home stand and the first time since July 23 that the Cardinals stacked their most muscular bats back to back to back to back in the middle of the order, with Berkman sliding in between Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and David Freese. This evening against first-place Milwaukee, the Cardinals figure to send out that foursome in the same lineup as newly acquired Rafael Furcal.

"It's nice to run guys like that out there on a nightly basis, and I think it's not going to be one game," Berkman said. "It's going to take a month's worth of really running that lineup out there before you can really tell what you've got. Certainly, the résumés are in place. It's a matter of getting it done on the field."

As the Cardinals wilted in the dog days last season, it was an 11-15 turn through August that cost them the division race with Cincinnati.

During this home stand, the Cardinals got whiffs of their improved depth and what portends to be a more balanced and more productive lineup. Freese added needed pop with Berkman shelved, hitting three home runs during the home stand, and infielder Skip Schumaker continued his surge by finishing July with a .347 average, one of the highest in the NL. Frees and Ryan Theriot became only the second Cardinals teammates in club history to each have consecutive three-RBI games.

Manager Tony La Russa said Berkman's homer Sunday off Dempster gave the team "a real shot."

Berkman missed four games because of a strain in his right shoulder

"Playing hurt and playing when you have doubt in your mind is not doing anybody any good," he explained Sunday."