MIAMI – It’s a neck-and-neck battle for offensive supremacy on the Chicago Cubs, with Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo dueling for team honors for a second consecutive year, but this year it's even closer. In the process, they’ve helped their team to the best record in baseball. It’s what you would call a healthy competition.

“We’ll just be running out to our positions and we’ll be like, ‘I passed you,’” Bryant said. “That kind of thing. Or sitting in the dugout, he’ll whisper it to me. Stuff like that. It’s all in good fun.”

Bryant and Rizzo have alternated leading the team in home runs and RBIs for much of the season -- and even within games.

With a historic effort in Cincinnati on Monday, Bryant finally seized temporary control of the RBI race (57 to 55) and extended his home run lead (now 21 to 18). Even on Bryant's big night, Rizzo wouldn't let himself be shut out completely. He followed his teammate's third home run with a solo shot of his own in the eighth inning -- the duo's second back-to-back home runs of 2016.

Earlier this month against the Pirates, they went deep back-to-back for the first time this season. Since Bryant bats ahead of Rizzo in the lineup, he had the home run lead for the briefest of moments that night.

“I was talking to one of my teammates and he was like, ‘He couldn’t let you have the home run lead for more than 30 seconds, could he?’” Bryant recalled laughing. “It reminds me of the fun we’re having.”

Both hit their 17th home runs of the season that night, highlighting the closeness of a competition that should only heat up as the year goes on.

“You know I have to get on base so he can knock me in, but that’s fine,” Bryant said, laughing. “I appreciate the friendly competition. It makes the team better.”

For all intents and purposes, they are near mirror images in terms of production, one from the right side, one from the left.

“It’s what we expect to do,” Rizzo said. “He’s a good hitter. I’m a good hitter, and we’re on a good team. They [the stats] happen to line up.”

Just as some of them did a year ago.

“It was back and forth the whole year as we both had 99 RBIs that last week of the season,” Bryant recalled. “He came out on top [101 to 99]. It’s just a constant need to be better, and when you see someone close to you have that success, it pushes you to want to join them and help the team.”

Both players stressed that helping the team win is goal No.1 in their friendly competition. The good news is that individual success automatically helps the team, so if pushing each other increases their numbers, it makes the Cubs better. According to ESPN Stats & Information, the Cubs are 6-0 when they’ve both hit home runs in the same game. When they both have multihit games, the Cubs are 7-0. And, of course, when they homer back-to-back the Cubs are now 2-0.

“Finally, back-to-back,” Bryant said of their first back-to-back blasts of 2016. “It was fun. Fun to enjoy the moments, and when we win the game it's obviously better. Everyone feeds off it. Everyone wants to join the fun. It helps everyone.”