PEORIA, Ariz. – Ichiro Suzuki walked in to spring training more than a month ago and looked like he was ready to start the season.
Five weeks later, nothing has changed for the Seattle Mariners star leadoff hitter. He has hit safely in all 15 games he has played – tying Ken Griffey Jr.s’ 1989 franchise record – and is on his way to smashing the team record for spring training batting average. He’s hitting .531, well ahead of Edgar Martinez’s .491 in 1996.
“If opening day was tomorrow, I think I’d be ready for the game,” he said. “But it’s not. You just have to plan accordingly.”
Suzuki prepares in his own meticulous, calculating way for a season that already is stirring high expectations because of what he did in 2004 when he set the major league record with 262 hits in a season.
He says he has made only minor adjustments to his swing since last year, when a slight change in July helped spring him to the single-season hits record.
“It was a change to my batting stance, the way I used my body,” Suzuki said. “It’s the same since last July but it’s changed a little this spring. It’s not that I’m a different player, but I’ve been able to make fewer mistakes than in the past.”
He made one of his few mistakes all spring in the first inning Friday when he struck out against Royals starter Brian Anderson. It was Suzuki’s first strikeout in 50 plate appearances, a phenomenal feat although not his best.
Once in Japan, he went about 240 plate appearances without a strikeout.
“Throughout that time, I still kept hitting,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was trying to not strike out.”
The talk now going into the regular season is whether Suzuki can become the first hitter since Ted Williams in 1941 to bat at least .400, or if he can break Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game hitting streak.
Suzuki wouldn’t say if those are his goals for 2005.
“I really can’t see that far ahead,” he said. “I’ve really got to focus on what I’m doing right now.”
He says DiMaggio’s streak in 1941 may be the most difficult baseball record to reach.
“Fifty-six games is so far,” Suzuki said. “It’s impossible to see. You can’t say nobody will ever do it. But I think it’s tougher to get than any other record.”
Having not been stopped yet at spring training, however, has stirred some far-fetched thinking. What if he went on a 162-game hitting streak, Suzuki was asked.
“If that happens,” he said, “then I’ll quit baseball.”
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