Now that Bud Norris and the Houston Astros are safely out of the National League Central you'd think the St. Louis Cardinals would be done worrying about #BudChuck, the remarkably effective poltergeist who possesses the Astros' hard-throwing starter on days he's lined up against the Cardinals. For his career, Bud Norris is 28-37 with an ERA of 4.42; against the Cardinals, as #BudChuck, he's 8-5 with an ERA of 2.74. Now, though, a very confusing rumor from Jon Heyman: The Cardinals asked about acquiring him.

#astros need to be overwhelmed to trade jed lowrie. they've talked to teams about bud norris (#cards, #rangers 2 of em)

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 17, 2012

The Cardinals must just that desperate to make sure he doesn't fall back into enemy hands 20 minutes into BudChuck 2: The Reckoning, scheduled to go direct-to-DVD in 2013, because I'm not sure how else Norris would fit into their plans. Every team should be a healthy level of interested in a hard-throwing, strikeout-an-inning starter who's struggled on some awful teams, but the Cardinals are going to have a hard-enough time finding starts for Shelby Miler; adding another starter to the depth chart seems like a waste of limited resources.

Of course, that's just what the angry scientist at the beginning of BudChuck 2: The Reckoning would say, right after he fired the action hero without cause and 20 minutes before the BudChuck gets loose and cuts him to ribbons inside a porta-potty.