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Defending Chinese League Baseball champion Dalian was first in the Northern League again in 1990, dominating the competition at 106-56. It was a 15-game gap to the second playoff spot, which went to Hangzhou. The Hens finished 91-71 to end an eight-year playoff drought. Shanghai was third at 87-75, followed by 84-78 Qingdao.

Although Tianjin was just below .500, RF Mingqi Dai won Northern League MVP for a CLB-record fourth time. The 32-year old lefty nicknamed “Bumblebee” led in runs (91), doubles (31), home runs (41), total bases (342), slugging (.626), OPS (.979), and wRC+ (234). Dai added 10.6 WAR and a .293 average. Shanghai’s Zuhang Cai won Pitcher of the Year in his seventh season. The 28-year old righty led in wins (22-10) with nine shutouts, posting 7.9 WAR over 242.2 innings with 286 strikeouts and 1.08 ERA. The ERA was the sixth lowest season in CLB history to that point, but was second in the NL to his teammate Zengxiang Zhang. Zhang was at 1.074 to Cai’s 1.076.



Macau and Shenzhen were again #1 and #2 in the Southern League. The Magicians set a new SL record at 115-47, the second most wins in a CLB season to date behind only 1971 Tianjin’s 123-39. The Spartans were 104-58, 11 games better than third place Changsha. Both Macau and Shenzhen earned their third consecutive playoff appearances.

Magicians 1B/P Wei Qin won his second Southern League MVP in three seasons, bouncing back after back spasms knocked him out much of 1989. At the plate, the 28-year old righty had 5.2 WAR, 28 home runs, 59 RBI, and a .251/.326/.492 slash. On the mound, he led in wins at 25-7 and posted a 1.95 ERA over 253.2 innings with 265 strikeouts and 6.9 WAR. His Macau teammate Lang Lu won back-to-back Pitcher of the Year awards, leading in ERA (1.51), quality starts (30), and WAR (6.9). The 27-year old Lu added a 20-8 record and 306 strikeouts over 263 innings.



Despite their SL-record effort, Macau was upset in the semifinal 4-2 by NL #2 Hangzhou. Dalian rolled to a semifinal sweep of Shenzhen, sending two Northern League teams to the 21^st China Series. The Gold Dragons would be denied the repeat in a stunning seven-game upset by the Hens. It Is Hangzhou’s second title, joining their 1979 campaign. LF Zengxiang Zhang was finals MVP, posting 14 hits, 8 runs, 3 home runs, and 6 RBI over 13 playoff starts.



Other notes: Three perfect games were thrown in CLB in 1990, making it 22 perfectos so far. The first was a dominant 18-strikeout effort by Yiping Chen of Shenzhen against Macau. This tied CLB’s record for most Ks in any no-hitter and was one short of the world record set the prior year for most in a perfect game. The second perfect game was one week later on April 3 as Zhengzhou’s Zueyu Lei fanned 11 against Hangzhou. On May 20, Guangzhou’s Zhilin Zhang struck out 11 against Kunming. Pengju Zue became the fifth pitcher to 3500 career strikeouts. LF Yuhong Huang won his seventh Gold Glove. Mingqi Dai won his eighth Silver Slugger at RF.