Shohei Ohtani becomes third Japanese-born player to reach historic milestone

Shohei Ohtani smoked his 100th home run in the second game of Saturday's LA Angels doubleheader against the Oakland Athletics in their 9-1 win. It was his seventh homer of the season for the two-way superstar.

While it was nice to see the best player in the league reach that milestone, it was even cooler when realizing the history behind it. Shohei Ohtani is the third Japanese-born player to hit the 100 home run milestone:

To be in the company of a World Series MVP in Hideki Matsui and a soon-to-be First-Ballot Hall of Famer is about as honorable as it gets. Another amazing aspect of it is that Ohtani is well on pace to having the most homers of the three. To collect 100 homers not even a quarter way through his fifth season goes to show how special Ohtani's career is going to be.

Shohei Ohtani left that game on pace for 124 career home runs by the end of the 2022 season.

LA Angels' starting DH Shohei Ohtani currently averages 37 bombs per 162 games after Sunday and Monday's games. Therefore, he'd theoretically need just two more seasons to surpass Matsui if he gets the 124 by the end of this year.

To be a starting pitcher and have the most home runs ever hit by a Japanese-born player would be electric. And of course, if he continues at this rate, he'll be in second-place at some point this season.

Ohtani continues to put quite an impressive resume together in this league, and is far from done. He has a Rookie of the Year award in 2018, an All-Star selection as both the starting pitcher for the AL and starting DH in 2021, a unanimous MVP in 2021, a Silver Slugger in 2021, and boasts a .264/.350/.531 (.881 OPS) slash line to go along with his now 101 home runs (he hit one on Sunday).

Adding a Commissioner's Historic Achievement Award to the mix in 2021, he's been the perfect face of this great game for two years now. He also continues to rep where he came from, and etch his name into even more history books in the process.