Rolen prepared to fill a stabilizer role

JUPITER, Fla. -- Scott Rolen says he hopes to accomplish last season's mid-summer mission: Help stabilize and improve the Cardinals' infield.

Rolen was acquired in a trade July 29 after spending seven seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies.

"It was tough to be traded in the middle of the season," the 27-year-old third baseman said Thursday. "But in retrospect, it was great, too. When I came in here this week I knew everybody. It's not like I had to introduce myself to everyone."

He batted .278 in 55 games with the Cardinals on 14 homers and 44 runs batted in, half of which came with two outs.

He has a career batting average of .281 in 899 games.

But during the second game of the NL division series last October, Rolen suffered a sprained left shoulder when he collided with Arizona pinchrunner Alex Cintron and missed the rest of the post-season.

After sweeping the defending NL champion Diamondbacks in three straight, the Cardinals lost the best-of-seven championship series to the San Francisco Giants in five games.

Rolen was kept on the active roster with the hope he would at least be able to pinch hit. He spent the off-season rehabilitating in Bradenton, Fla., near his home in Holmes Beach and eventually signed a contract extension through 2010.

"We had a lot of injuries last season," general manager Walt Jocketty said, not to mention the death in June of pitcher Darryl Kile. "Maybe losing Rolen affected us more than we thought. By then, we were just worn down."

"Everything has gone well so far," Rolen said after the second day of workouts. "The shoulder is fine," he said. "No baseball player's shoulder is perfect. It's where I need it to be. I've been able to throw hard."

In batting practice, "I'm just trying to hit the ball up the middle, work up some blisters on my hands," he added.

Rolen joins the veteran infield of shortstop Edgar Renteria, 27, who has spent the last four of his seven major league seasons with the Cardinals, second baseman Fernando Vina, 33, who has been in the major leagues since 1993, the last two seasons in St. Louis, and first baseman Tino Martinez, 35, who won four World Series titles with the New York Yankees before being signed by the Cardinals as a free agent on Dec. 18, 2001.

The trade was the first of Rolen's career and he also experienced several other firsts in 2002: voted to the NL All-Star team, his first post-season and his first NL Silver Slugger award. He received his fourth Gold Glove in five seasons.

"It's just outstanding that he's here at the start of the season," manager Tony La Russa said. "He did all his rehab work before he got here and he's done everything we've asked the last two days."

Notes: Asked how the rivalry with the Chicago might change with Dusty Baker as the new manager of the Cubs, St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said, "It's always 100 percent intense so it can't be any more than that. But those players will respond and the club will be tougher to beat."

Noteworthy

No schedule has been set for the Cardinals' intrasquad games, nor when the team will work out on the main field at Roger Dean Stadium. "We will probably decide something over the weekend," La Russa said. "We have always had two in the past but we may do three this year."

The Florida Marlins, who share the training complex with the Cardinals, play the first game at RDS on Wednesday, a 2:05 p.m. start against the University of Miami, then meet the Baltimore Orioles the following afternoon.

St. Louis plays its first game here Feb. 28 against the Mets after opening with New York in Port St. Lucie the previous day.