4th of July Power Rankings, Week 14

First:

Samsung 5-0

Lions are unbeaten along with SK this week and is actually performing better than SK these days. Earned runs for past week games go (from early to later) 1.00, 3.00, 6.00, 0.00, 1.00 as opposed to SK's 5.00, 4.09, 2.00, 7.00, 1.00. Played Lotte close and hard in their sweep and kept Kia losing.

Second:

SK 5-0

Going unbeaten is still a feat. You can say their sweep of Kia is something special if you're comparing Kia to its team last year. But I guess Kia's a 6th place team and sweeping them's no big deal. They did win their 2 games against Doosan. They let in more runs than they'd like to this week.

Third:

Doosan 3-2

No problems beating up Hanhwa but SK was a different story. Lucky to miss Ryu Hyun-jin in that series but could only knock in one run against DePaula. More on him later (he's not doing too bad for Netherlands oops I mean Hanhwa). Team hitting hard with a 291 average that leads the KBO. But just 2 individuals in the top 10 for batting averages (Lee Jong-ok and the main man Choi Joon-suk). That means this team can hit.

Fourth:

Lotte 2-3

Regardless of the record this team can hit hard. Well, their stars can hit hard. Lee Dae-ho, Hong Song-heung, and Cho Sung-hwan are 1-2-and-3 in batting averages right now. Karim Garcia's also up there in home runs. Top 3 home run hitters would be all Lotte if Choi Jin-heng wasn't around.

Fifth:

Hanhwa 2-3

Couldn't win against Doosan but beat Nexen twice. Their first game against team below had a typical Ryu Hyun-jin pitching 6 shutout innings and K'ing 8. Great team effort in game 2 of that mini series with 5 pitchers only letting in a run. And scored 7 runs for the win. Julio DePaula's ERA's in his last 4 starts read 11.81, 1.59, 12.27, and 1.23. He pitched 2 shutout relief innings in the latest game. This is the Hanhwa story for 2010. And Ryu's been reported to be consorting with major league super agent Scott Boras, great stuff for Ryu, not so great for this team

Sixth:

Nexen 2-3

Nexen's still doing their thing. Not a whole lot to talk about over here. Score a few runs, win a few, lose a few. Hang on in some games, get blasted in other games (their two games against Hanhwa for example). Inconsistent and non-playoff.

Seventh:

LG 1-5

Fortunately moved up to 5th place because of Kia's misadventures. But this team only registered 1 win against an unstable Nexen team. Let the same Nexen team score 12 runs in the finale of that series and just to make Lotte not jealous let Lotte's big boys score 14. They did score 13 in that loss which went into extras. Tons of hitting in that close game but the superior team will win and indeed Lotte did. But there is 1 team LG can beat..

Last:

Kia 0-5

Tigers haven't won a game since June 17 when George W. Bush was still president. Well I may be getting the presidents mixed up but even a 9 year old soccer fan from Paraguay or Uruguay or one of those countries that can't tell the difference between a ball and a strike can tell you this Kia team is in trouble. SK (twice), Nexen, and Doosan have now swept this team. Another series with Doosan and Hanhwa are up this coming week. Kia has now just 4 more wins than last place Hanhwa and they could go from worst to first to worst this week.

Happy Independence Day!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzL4L_FpLvE

Note, that Ryu/Boras connection was unfounded rumour my bad, happy 4/7..

Simon