Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
In case anyone didn’t notice, outfielder Ichiro Suzuki became the all-time Mariners hits leader with 2,248. Knowing him, I’m surprised it took him this long.
Ichiro did it in style, too:
Suzuki has 2,248 hits, one better than Edgar Martinez’s previous club record. The milestone came on the 10th anniversary of Suzuki’s major league debut.
Maybe now he’ll announce to the world that he really can hit for power, too.
On the same day, Jose Bautista hit his 50th homer of the season and Ichiro Suzuki got his 200th hit of the season for the tenth consecutive season.
I’ll give you one guess which story got the most news coverage. Yeah, Bautista.
Ichiro’s milestone is a significant one. No other player has accomplished such a feat. Not Cobb, not Hornsby nor Lajoie. Pete Rose is the only to have ten (non-consecutive) seasons with 200 hits.
It’s a shared opinion among many of my baseball friends that if he chose to, Ichiro could hit 30 homers a season. Maybe more. He just chooses to play his brand of baseball. The one that earns him a .331 career batting average, best among active players.
The 2009 Gold Gloves were presented the other day. Generally speaking, what struck me was this. With an award that used to be awarded so traditionally, only two winners have more four to their credit. Outfielders Ichiro Suzuki and Torii Hunter both have nine Gold Glove Awards on their mantle. In case you’re wondering, they’re 6th on the all-time list for outfielders (they have six more to go to catch Roberto Clemente).
Some thoughts on a few of the Gold Glove award winners:
Ryan Zimmerman finally got his Gold Glove. The cynic in me says that he finally hit well enough to deserve the award. He hit better than David Wright who somehow got it the past two years. Zim led the NL in assists and was 2nd in putouts.
While Jimmy Rollins won the Gold glove for shortstop, my vote would have gone to Troy Tulowitzki. Tulo was in the top two in the league in fielding percentage, putouts, zone rating, total chances, and assists. Rollins had the advantage of leading the NL in fielding percentage, an overrated stat, in my opinion.
I’m a big Orlando Hudson fan. Let’s get that out of the way. But I was a bit surprised when he got the award this year. It was his fourth one of his career but last year, due to his injuries, Brandon Phillips took it away from him. Baseball is such a game of tradition. Despite his deserving it, I wasn’t sure if the coaches would give it back to him.
I’ve been critical of Derek Jeter’s glove work in the past but word has it his fielding has really taken a turn for the better. That and a slightly weak (Orlando Cabrera excluded) competition, Jeter deserved it this time.
Outfielder and Pitcher Gold Gloves… almost irrelevant in most cases. in the cases they are relevant, they get ignored for those who are good with the stick.
Thirteen proved to be an unlucky number for the National League as once again, they need to wait another year. The American League defeated them 4-3 Tuesday in a tight game decided by good bullpen pitching and clutch hitting.
Bleacher Report live blogged the whole affair if the want all the details in its sordid glory.
A few of the subplots:
Overall, FOX averaged an estimated 12.32 million viewers to go with a 7.5 rating/13 share. NBC’s 5.7/10 was second, topping the 4.8/8 for CBS. ABC’s 2.7/5 and The CW’s 0.5/1 trailed.
2010 is a new year and a new decade. I can feel a NL victory… maybe.
Update: just to prove that you can use stats to prove any point, while FOX’ ratings WERE better than any in their slot, they did slip a bit from last year. Down 4% from last year’s game.
Things are so bad in the Seattle clubhouse there’s talk of player anger toward Ichiro.
…former manager John McLaren and his staff were forced to act this season after a player was overheard talking about Ichiro and wanting to "knock him out."
Apparently, some players had an issue with Ichiro’s "selfish" style of play.