[Ultra Peanut]

Hey guys, Will Leitch thinks you're FULL OF SHIT:

GR: Okay, here's the most obvious question given that nobody expected much out of the Cardinals seeing as how it's basically Albert Pujols and a rag-tag bunch of ragamuffin kids. What would you say the key is to their success? Is Dave Duncan just a wizard or something (and I mean, literally, a wizard)?


Will Leitch: It's pretty ridiculous what Ryan Ludwick has done this year; you could make an argument he has been more important to the Cards than Pujols. (You'd be wrong, but you could make that argument.) Going into the season, I thought the Cardinals' best outfielder would be Colby Rasmus. Ludwick has been amazing (if streaky), Skip Schumaker and Joe Mather are a surprisingly effective platoon and it has been a sublime pleasure watching Rick Ankiel (swoon!) improve seemingly by the game. That outfield was supposed to be a wasteland; it's been the team strength. Much is made out of the rotation, but it has been anything from dominant. Lohse is the ace, and he's not having the season everyone thinks he's having, Todd Wellemeyer is only recently starting to look healthy again, if Braden Looper reaches the seventh inning we're doing backflips and Joel Pineiro ... well, I like the color of his glove. In other words: Duncan is getting too much credit. (I mean, he is the bullpen's pitching coach too. And if the bullpen were even halfway decent, we'd be battling you guys for first place rather than hoping the Brewers kill each other.) The offense (and defense, vastly underrated, as always) is the reason they're 10 games over .500 in a season in which we were idly dreaming of breaking even, maybe.