Godzilla Hits 250th

The Giants' Matsui Hideki (surname first) hit his career 250th home run last night (4/12) in the Giants' 2-1 victory over Chunichi at Nagoya Dome to become the 41st player in Japan to reach the quarter-K mark.At the young age of 26 and 10 months, Matsui is the 3rd youngest player to reach the 250 home run mark.  The youngest was the world wide home run king Oh Sadaharu, hitting his 250th at 26 years and 2 months, then current team mate Kiyohara Kazuhiro at 26 years and 8 months.

While Matsui's 250th home run came in his 1000th career game played, he was mear 6 games later than Oh, being ranked 7th on that speed list.  But Kiohara isn't even in the top 10 here, hitting his 250th home run in his 1048th game.

Nikkan Sports has an interesting comparison between Matsui and Kiyohara as the two hit various milestones:

Matsui	HRs	Kiyohara
468 (4.68)	100	423 (4.23)
666 (3.96)	150	596 (3.46)
841 (3.50)	200	824 (4.56)
1,000 (3.18)	250	1,048 (4.48)

I added the numbers in parentheses to show the pace at which each slugger hit home runs during each phase.Kiyohara peaked in the second quarter of his career, hitting a home run just better than every 3 1/2 games.  Matsui, though, has improved his pace for every 50 home runs.  He's looking to hit 50 every year, now!

Speaking of hitting 50 every year, let's take a look at Matsui's yearly home run production:

Year	Games	AB	HRs	HR/G	HR/AB
1993	57	184	11	5.18	16.73
1994	130	503	20	6.50	25.15
1995	131	501	22	5.94	22.77
1996	130	487	38	3.42	12.82
1997	135	484	37	3.65	13.08
1998	135	487	34	3.97	14.32
1999	135	471	42	3.21	11.21
2000	135	474	42	3.21	11.29
2001	12	45	4	3.00	11.25
Total	1,000	3,636	250	4.00	14.54

As you can see, from 1996 on, Godzilla has gone deep just about once every series.  This is why the press will make a big to do if Matsui goes a week without hitting a home run.

The big question isn't so much "Can Matsui catch Oh," but, "Will Matsui still be in Japan long enough to catch Oh?"