SEATTLE – A season of team-wide failure for the Seattle Mariners has become an individual sport for Ichiro Suzuki.
In a month of May that the Mariners would rather forget, Suzuki finished it with a memorable achievement in a 6-2 victory Monday night over the Toronto Blue Jays at Safeco Field.
Suzuki got three hits and became the first player since Pete Rose to have two 50-hit months in his career. He also had 51 hits in August, 2001.
Rose had 52 hits in July, 1973, and 51 in September, 1979.
“Those are two pretty good hitters,” Mariners manager Bob Melvin said. “Rose was a hit machine and Ichiro is a hit machine. Pretty soon it’s going to be one record after another for him. I’m glad he’s on my side.”
Suzuki’s take?
“I don’t get too involved in records, even my own,” Suzuki said.
Still, he took notice at this one because of the man he stands beside – Rose.
“I was surprised that it was only the second time that it has happened,” said Suzuki, who had never seen Rose play. “I knew who he was. As a kid, I had a catalog that I looked at, and he was in it.”
Suzuki also has a baseball autographed by Rose that was given him by former Mariners bench coach John McLaren, who coached for the Reds.
Suzuki singled in the first, third and sixth innings, scored a run and drove in another. He finished May with a .400 average for the month and a .335 season mark that moved him into seventh place in the American League batting race.
“He’s got a knack on how to adjust and when to adjust,” Melvin said. “Good hitters do that, and he’s certainly a good hitter. In April, sometimes your body and your mind aren’t really in synch. You’re excited to play and your body’s not quite there yet. After a month of the season, everything kind of gets in sync. That’s part of what’s going on.”
For one of the few times all season, the Mariners had every part of their game in sync.
Jamie Moyer pitched 72/3 strong innings, allowing only two solo home runs. Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who gave up a two-run lead Sunday in a game the Mariners lost in Boston, got a critical out in the eighth inning to stop the Blue Jays. And the Mariners put together an offense that resembled the good old days, when they got hits and moved runners.
Besides Suzuki, Randy Winn had two hits and drove in three runs and Rich Aurilia went 2-for-4 and drove in a run. The M’s scored their runs in pairs, with two in the third inning, two in the fourth and two in the eighth.
“I’ve started feeling like myself again the last week or so,” said Aurilia, who raised his average to .236. “I’ve started to relax and trust myself.”
Defensively, Winn made two solid plays near the wall in center field and third baseman Scott Spiezio smothered two hot smashes with dives to both his left and right.
“We played the game the way it was supposed to be played,” Moyer said. “We got guys on base, we moved them over. We had some mini-rallies. We’re doing a lot of good things as an offense.”
It’s about time.
The Mariners still haven’t reached the 20-victory mark, raising their record to 19-31 and remaining last in the American League West.
“Almost across the board we were struggling, and now you’re seeing guys as a group swinging the bat better,” Melvin said. “I always had confidence in them. We stuck with them, and now we just need to do this for an extended period of time.”
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