Rhodes Hits #49, Ties Club Record

Kintetsu's Tuffy Rhodes has made it three games in a row, hitting his 49th round tripper of the year last night (9/2) in leading the Buffaloes 10-9 over the Nippon Ham Fighters.

Rhodes is now listed in the top 10 for home runs in a single season, tying Bryant and Oh (3 times) in 9th with 49 home runs. 49 is the current Buffaloe team record, so far held by Bryant since 1989.

When Oh hit 55 in 1964, he reached the 50 home run point at 122 games. Rhodes is poised to better that mark, having reached 49 in 119 games.

What's more, hitting his first home run of the season against the Fighters' Sasaki last night, Sasaki became Rhodes' 36th mound victim, surpassing the 1972 Oh and 1985 Bass for hitting home runs off of the most pitchers in a single season.

Rhodes has a 7 game RBI streak going on top of his 3 game home run streak. During these 7 games, Rhodes has driven in 18 runs. He's also had his average climb to .333, rising up to 2nd place, micro points over team mate Nakamura. (You might remember I said that Nakamura had the best chance at a Triple Crown earlier this season. Well, things change, and now Rhodes does.) It'll be a hard battle to over take the Fighting Ham's Ogasawara who is batting .345, though. But if he's come this far, ...

Oh, and speaking of Nakamura, he was the only starting player not to get a hit in last night's game. He did walk twice and score once, so it wasn't a complete bust, but grounding into his 23rd double play of the year in the 7th inning to tie a club record didn't make playing in his career 1,000th game very memorable. Well, the team did win and take over first place. As Rhodes says over and over, it's the championship that's most important, not all of these title races. (Although, for fans, the title races are pretty exciting as well - especially this year!)

Oh's Daiei couldn't score a run last night, losing 2-0 to Orix. That put the hot Buffaloes back in first place fo the first time since August 24th.