St. Louis Cardinals asked about trading for Bud Norris, presumably to contain him in some kind of secret vault

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.