Statsui: MVP delivers jaw-dropping numbers

Matsui ties World Series record with six RBIs in Game 6

Anthony DiComo / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- For a man as typically stoic as Hideki Matsui, the display was something more emblematic of his caricature, Godzilla. Matsui, clapping his hands together at every pronouncement of his team's accomplishments, listened to the emcee boom out his name and walked to the front of the stage.

Matsui removed his cap and doffed it to the crowd, running a hand through his jet black hair. Then Matsui raised two clenched fists into the air.

"I guess you could say this is the best moment of my life right now," Matsui said later, through an interpreter.

If not that, it was perhaps the most influential moment for one of baseball's global superstars. Matsui, on the strength of his record-tying six RBIs in Wednesday's Game 6, was named the World Series MVP presented by Chevrolet after the Yankees defeated the Phillies, 7-3. He became both the first Japanese-born player and the first full-time designated hitter to win the award.

"They're partying in Tokyo tonight," teammate Nick Swisher said. "I know that. What a great job Matsui did for us, coming up in clutch situations all year long. He deserved that MVP trophy, no doubt about it."

In the long and storied history of World Series play, few have matched what Matsui did in Game 6. In his first at-bat, after Alex Rodriguez walked, Matsui squared up a series of foul balls before blasting Pedro Martinez's eighth pitch into the upper deck in right field, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead.

Though Matsui was 8-for-18 off Martinez in his postseason career before that hit, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel allowed his starter to pitch to him again in the third inning, rather than summon left-hander J.A. Happ. And Matsui smoked another ball, this one on a line to center field, plating two more runs.

In the fifth, the Phillies finally did turn to Happ.