As if the wild, five-team race for the elusive second-half title with just a week left to play in the 2004 Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) regular season was not exciting enough, here are a few more battles among the league's elites in individual statistical categories that should keep the ultimate baseball fan more occupied than ever.
Leading the way is the home run race between Chang "Prince of the Forest" Tai-shan (
Becoming the first man to achieve back-to-back seasons with 20-or-more homers, Chang leads Peng by three home runs with 21 to his credit and four games left to play.
Though some may argue that Chang has all but won the home-run title, he would be the first to point out how streaky Peng can be.
In addition to the home-run title chase, the two batting artists are also involved in a fight for most base hits with Chang (123) holding a one-hit lead over Peng (122) as of Friday night.
The scale is tilting towards Chang, because the Sinon Bulls standout will face a weaker Macoto Cobras pitching staff next week, while Peng takes on a tough La New Bears squad that has not surrendered more than three runs in the past nine contests.
Another category that will go down the wire is total stolen bases.
Last season's runner-up Chi Jung-lin (
In the interest of boosting their top base stealer's chances for winning this category, teams have intentionally left the player off the starting lineup in the past so that they could pinch run the base stealer only after a player has gotten on base with a hit or a walk.
Chi would have the advantage here should his team choose to implement such a strategy, because he is an outfielder, as opposed to Cheng, whose stellar defense at shortstop would be sorely missed by the Bulls if he were left out of the starting lineup.
The struggle for the best ERA between Bulls fastball specialist Yang Jien-fu (
Yang, with his league-best mark of 1.65 and one more scheduled start for next week, could be this year's ERA king as long as he allows three earned runs or less in at least five innings of work.
For Lin, who trails Yang by .130 with a 1.78 mark for the year, the climb may be more difficult.
While he must do well in his own start against the Bulls next week, Yang will need his teammates to score some runs.
It would be a tremendous accomplishment for Lin if he can win the ERA title because the Cobras second-year sensation has already wrapped up the strikeout title by holding an insurmountable 196-to-153 lead over Yang.
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