It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the Cardinals and you can see that it’s wearing on them…

Carlos Beltran misses games with a sore knee…

Jon Jay hits the DL with a shoulder injury…

Allen Craig hits the DL with a hamstring injury…

Kyle McClellan hits the DL with an elbow injury…

Lance Berkman hits the DL with a knee injury…

Now, Beltran has been back in the lineup so he’s not a “loss” but the others are for the time being and in the cases of McClellan and Berkman it may be a long-term absence. We’ll have to wait and see on that but right now this team is reeling.

Injuries are at the root of the team’s inability to compensate for other things that are going wrong but they’re not necessarily causing those other problems. What are those problems? Well…

* Too many errors and missed plays.

* Starting pitchers not getting deep enough into games, averaging exactly 6 innings per start in 19 games this month.

* Right handed relievers (not named Jason Motte) with a collective 6.41 ERA this month (not counting Brandon Dickson’s 1 IP over the weeken).

Those things are connected. Errors and missed plays extend innings. Extended innings mean more pitches for the starters and that gets them out of the game earlier than the team would like. Starters coming out early wears out the bullpen. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be broken and in my eyes the easiest place to start with is the team playing better defense.

They could also use some more timely hitting. Plenty of guys are hitting but there have been lots of missed chances this month.

None of these things are particularly unusual phases that teams go through but when a team is going through all of them at one time, well, it can get ugly. Injuries, loose defense, short starts, worn bullpen and missed opportunities are a dangerous, toxic mix.

So what do the Cardinals need to do?

To oversimplify, they need to buck up. Or man up. Or cowboy up. Or step up. Or whatever “up” cliche you want to come up with…

It’s easier said than done but it is what must be done, nonetheless.

Not to be too corny or anything but a few nights ago I was watching the movie “Rocky Balboa.” Yeah, the one with the old Rocky. It’s not great, I know, but it’s a lot better than I thought it would be when I first heard about it. Anyway, there’s a line in that movie, while not born of the world’s great philosophers, that is appropriate for the Cardinals right now.

“It’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

That’s fine and I do believe there is truth in that statement but the “moving forward” part doesn’t always come right away. I seem to remember a number of times in those movies where Rocky was staggered, in trouble and almost beaten.

Sometimes when you take big hits you’re going to stumble around while you try to stabilize and find your footing. That’s where I see the Cardinals right now. They’re staggered but they’ll recover.

To what degree will they recover?

That I don’t know. What I do know is this: you cannot form your opinion on this matter right now. You have to let it play out. If you didn’t learn at least that much from the 2011 season then you didn’t learn anything and can probably never be pleased.

There is a lot of work to be done but thankfully there is a lot of time to do it at this point in the season.