Cardinals manager Mike Matheny keeps talking about removing Dexter Fowler from the leadoff spot. Wow.

That didn’t take long, eh?

And while I’m not here to try and make a case that Fowler is doing better than it seems — he isn’t — I don’t think you pull the plug on on a player that’s been among the very best leadoff men in baseball for many seasons.

Not even if Fowler does rank 30th in the majors right now in with a .297 leadoff OBP.

Matheny didn’t sound as if he’s quite ready to make this move, but he’s contemplating it, and that seems peculiar to me. And disrespectful.

Fowler has been doing this for a long time. Between 2008 and 2016, Fowler had a leadoff OBP of .367, and that was based on 3,050 big-league plate appearances when set up in the No. 1 spot.

That track record suggests patience is the smart way to go.

Fowler ain’t the only struggling hitter to be getting paid by the Cardinals these days.

So why embarrass Fowler by floating a trial balloon about pulling him from the leadoff gig?

The Cardinals spent $82.5 million to recruit and sign Fowler to hit leadoff. And though he’s off to a disappointing launch in his first season in St. Louis, you don’t start messing with him based on 165 plate appearances in the leadoff spot .

If you examine a guy’s resume to form a reasonable expectation of what he’ll do over time … well, judging a leadoff man on 3,050 plate appearances is a helluva lot more meaningful than 165 PA.

With Fowler igniting their offense at the top of the lineup — he had a .369 leadoff OBP over two seasons — the Cubs won 97 games and a division-round series in 2015, and shook history last year by winning their first World Series since 1908.

Fowler is also playing with a sore shoulder that clearly impacts his throwing. And it may be a factor in his offensive struggles. After all, Fowler was starting to click consistently at the plate before damaging the shoulder.

By the way: have the Cardinals heard of this thing called the 10-day disabled list?

Just asking for a friend.

Maybe if the team had given Fowler time to shut it down and heal and put the shoulder issue behind him, we wouldn’t be stressing over his play.

I find this fascinating.

For years, no matter how poorly Matt Holliday was going at the time, or no matter how much his power dropped (which it did for several seasons), or even when Holliday wasn’t fully healthy and thus incapable of hitting with authority ..

Holliday would be glued to the No. 3 spot in Matheny’s lineup card.

And Holiday would remain glued to No. 3 in Matheny’s lineup spot.

Except on rare occasion nothing — and I mean nothing, not even an act of Congress or a Supreme Court ruling — would convince Matheny to dislodge Holliday from that No. 3 spot.

This is a manager that wouldn’t even take Allen Craig out of his lineup — out of hopelessly misguided loyalty — when Craig completely lost his ability to hit.

Craig was so bad in 2014 — and Matheny’s devotion to Craig was so preposterous — GM John Mozeliak had to intervene and trade Craig to Boston.

Back in 2015, this manager kept better hitters on the bench to give frequent at-bats to Jon Jay, who had a damaged wrist that prevented him from doing much more than hit harmless ground balls.

But now, less than two months into Fowler’s first season in St. Louis, the Beloved Leader of Men may erase Fowler’s nine-season body of work as an acclaimed leadoff hitter and demote him from the top spot. Really?

The double standards are amusing.

I assume Fowler has figured out that he isn’t playing for Joe Maddon.

Thanks for reading …

—Bernie

Bird Bytes: Cubs Back In First Place; Cardinals Back to Undermining Themselves