Rhodes Surpasses Cabrera
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Some rights reserved.
JPB veteran Tuffy Rhodes, on the other hand, has caught up to the dormant Lion during the past couple of weeks, and passed him up.
I wanted to write something about this yesterday (7/1), as Rhodes hit a pair of homers (#31 and #32) in Saturday's (6/30) game, but between preparing for our local Matsuri (to be held next weekend, if you're in the Yokohama area) and a seminar I need some brushing up on, I didn't get around to it. Now that I have time during lunch, I don't have yesterday's paper, so instead of writing about how Rhodes took over first place, I'll writing about something else I've been thinking about.
For home runs in the Pacific League this year, three names have stood out: Cabrera (Lions), Rhodes (Buffaloes), and Nakamura (Buffaloes). Rhodes won the HR and the RBI titles two years ago, Nakamua took them both last year. Until Rhodes took over in the HR category on Saturday, Cabrera was the front runner in both categories this season.
Nakamura went into the season thinking "Triple Crown." He's got a ways to go in home runs right now, but he's managed to stay on top of the batting race most of the season, hitting.362. Here's how our three players rank in the Triple Crown race so far:
As you can see, Nakamura, despite being quite a bit behind in home runs, probably has the best chance at the Triple Crown, being in the top 3 for all three categories. Daiei's Matsunaka trails him at .355 followed by Lotte's Fukuura at .340.
Both Rhodes and Cabrera are in the best position for the remaining two categories. So it should be an interesting race.
That's all the time I have today. I hope this give you something to think about in the mid-summer heat.