Are the Bulls for real this season?

Twenty games into the 300-game CPBL season and the Sinon Bulls top the standings -- but can last season's third-place finisher stay there?

After six games against two middling opponents in the Makoto Gida and First Securities Agan, the Sinon Bull are leading the standings at 5-1-0.

Apart from a tough loss against Agan ace Liang Rue-hao (梁如豪) on March 13, the Bulls have won all of the games they have played behind a lineup that has produced 51 runs in six games.

Bulls hang tough

It is still too early to tell if the Bulls are for real, however, because of the questionable strength of their opponents, but a good start should give them a boost going into a two-game series against the China Trust Whales and the Brother Elephants later this month.

The Whales are well known as having great pitching depth and such an advantage will become more obvious and effective as the four-game series is in place for this season.

"Manager Lin Jung-Chiu (縲腿繃) will have all the pitching power he needs to play against any team in the league," said Richard Wang, Director of News and Public Relations at the CPBL.

Closely behind the Bulls are the President Lions, Whales and Gida, all of whom are one-and-a-half games back.

These middle-of-the-pack teams all show promise, but have their weaknesses.

Sparing Lions

With a roster that includes three former number one draft choices and Joe Davenport of the US, the Lions have a league-best ERA of 1.92. This means three runs on offense would normally be enough to win the game for the Lions every night.

Commenting on the recent season-ending leg injury suffered by his ace starter Dzeng Yee-cheng, (縲姚繃) Lions manager Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明) said, "We are grateful for the number of solid pitchers we have on our staff. Despite the unfortunate loss of Yee-cheng, we are hopeful that the other guys can step up right away and get the job done for us."

Loaded Whales

The Whales are also loaded with pitching talent, with Dominican sensation Geraldo Guzman, Nakayama Hiroaki of Japan, set-up man Lin Chao-huang (腿怠戧) and closer Kuo-Lee Chien-fu (郭李建夫).

Lin and Kuo-Lee are both veterans from Taiwan's 1992 Barcelona Olympic silver medal winning team.

The road to a championship for the Whales, however, lies in the bats of its hitters who are

averaging .314, second-best in the league.

Lucky Gida

Gida (4-3-0) has a winning record mainly because of their five-game home run-hitting streak.

All four Gida wins have been by one-run margins, otherwise, their minus-13 run differential, (26 runs scored and 39 runs allowed) and the lack of good pitching would have easily put them in the same category with the Agan and the Elephants.

Singular Agan

Sitting on figures of 2-5-0, the Agan epitomizes the term "one-man show."

Both of their victories thus far have come on hurler Liang Rue-hao's starts, where opponents were held to a total of five runs.

Liang is the type of pitcher who possesses unusual poise when he is on the mound. Agan ace Liang and closer Lee Feng-Hua (李風華) are the only bright spots on a troubled team thus far, but were a perfect combination in the only two wins for the club so far.

Jack Chen, a pundit for VOH Radio said, "Simply put, the Agan are 2-0 in the two games started by Liang, and 0-5 in games without his services."

The scoring margin in those five games was a whopping 47 to 7, and instead of waiting on the team to find some decent pitching help for him, Agan manager Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明) has taken matters into his own hands and has tried to sign Greg Bicknell from last season's Taiwan Major League Chiayi Luka.