After being unhappy with the way his lifeless team approached John Maine in Game 6 Wednesday night, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa toyed with the idea of making major changes with the lineup for last night’s NLCS Game 7.

“I think the biggest thing was, I was really not pleased at all with the way we competed at the plate (Wednesday),” La Russa said of the 4-2 loss in which the Cardinals didn’t score until the ninth against Billy Wagner.

“[I] gave serious thought to what that should mean for today’s lineup, and then you see what I came up with.” The only personnel change against Mets lefty Oliver Perez was Preston Wilson in left for Scott Spiezio. La Russa switched second baseman Ronnie Belliard and catcher Yadier Molina; Belliard went from seventh to eighth and Molina, who was hitting .316 (6-for-19) in the six games, moved to seventh from eighth.

La Russa, who watched tape of the slumping Scott Rolen’s ninth-inning double, didn’t use the video to decide on last night’s lineup card.

“I just reviewed the game, the way guys are swinging,” La Russa said.

“There are some guys who I thought didn’t have their game ready [Wednesday] and they deserve to play [last night].” Listening to La Russa, it sounded as if he overruled his own managing guideline.

“It was really tough because, here is one of my favorite answers during the regular season: When in doubt, play your hardestplaying guys,” La Russa said. “I don’t care what the matchups are. I don’t care if it’s lefties against lefties or righties, they are going to be out there treating it like the seventh game of the World Series.

“I wanted to be sure about that [last night] and the reason it’s tough is that the guys on the bench, there are a lot of those guys. You take [So] Taguchi, you take [Chris] Duncan, you take Aaron Miles, you take Spiezio, Gary Bennett and John Rodriguez. I literally had one lineup where that part was covered. But I feel confident that the guys that are playing are going to have that same intensity.”