Everybody knows that Cardinals have had trouble in the bullpen this year. Everybody knows that Isringhausen and Franklin have accumulated a pile of missed save opportunities along with 10 losses between them. Neither has the ERA of a closer and Isringhausen’s current 5.98 ERA is difficult to align with his career statistics. With the recent recall of Chris Perez, the Cardinals may be closing in on a solution. Since rejoining the club last week, Perez has made three appearances, each scoreless and each of one inning or more. His first appearance saw him pitch an inning and two-thirds of scoreless baseball on just 21 pitches, leading to his first career save. I admit that it is hard to project Perez as the closer based on eleven outs, but with five strikeouts, four ground ball outs, one fly out, and a runner caught stealing against just two walks and one hit, he seems to be pitching the way a closer should. I think it’s prudent to keep the closer-by-committee policy alive, but I like what I’m seeing from Chris Perez.