WASHINGTON -- A driving force behind the Cards' second-half surge up the National League Wild Card standings, the bullpen has opened September by showing its cracks. Most concerning for St. Louis is where those cracks are forming -- the back end, where, for much of the season, few showed.
The anchor of their relief corps and one of the few whose roles wasn't revamped or discarded in the past few months, Bud Norris now sits at the center of their woes. It was behind a second consecutive implosion from their closer that the Cardinals lost a 4-3 decision to the Nationals at Nationals Park on Monday.