Rhodes 6th Player to Reach 50 HRs

In their 8-1 loss to Seibu last night at Seibu Dome against the Monster (Matsuzaka), Rhodes broke the shut out (against Lions' third pitcher of the night, Mitsui) when he homered to left field, just clearing the fence, to lead off the 9th inning. That puts Rhodes up with the elites, Oh, Bass, Nomura, Ochiai, and Kozuru. (All of these players are featured in Japanese Baseball SuperStars", which has been a great resource for me.) What's more, Rhodes has tied Oh's pace at reaching 50 in 122 games. Here's the breakdown of when each mark was reached:

Player	Year	50	51	52	53	54	55
1. 55 Oh Sadaharu (Giants) 2. 54 Randy Bass (Hanshin) 3. 52 Nomura Katsuya (Nankai) 3. 52 Ochiai Hiromitsu (Lotte) 5. 51 Kozuru Makoto (Shochiku) 5. 51 Oh Sadaharu (Giants) 7. 50 Oh Sadaharu (Giants) 7. 50 Ochiai Hiromitsu (Lotte) 7. 50 Tuffy Rhodes (Kintetsu)	64 85 63 85 50 73 77 86 01	122 124 149 128 132 123 129 122 122	122 124 149 129 135 124	129 125 150 130	129 126	138 128	140

The thing I'm most concerned with right now is that Nakamura, batting behind Rhodes, appears to be hitting a slump. It should get tougher to get anything good to hit coming down the line, but if Nakamura can break out of this slump, Seibu and Daiei will be forced to pitch to him to stay in the race.

Speaking of which, 0 games now separate first place Kintetsu from the third place Lions, with both Kintetsu and Daiei having 65 and 55 records (2 ties to 1 respectively). The Pacific looks pretty hot this year.