Baseball: ichiro sets hit record

all is not lost for the members of the mariner nation...ichiro suzuki has set an all time record for hits in the first 4 years of a major league career....ok so it's not a record that anyone has ever heard of before but is a brief ray of sunshine in an otherwise terrible season, and it is a record that has stood since the 1920's

Ichiro sets a hit record
Outfielder on pace for fourth straight 200-hit season
By Jim Street / MLB.com


Ichiro Suzuki is on pace for his third 50-hit month this season. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)



SEATTLE -- Ichiro Suzuki added another entry into his expanding Major League record book Wednesday night and this one toppled an accomplishment that occurred in the Roaring '20s.
Ichiro singled in the first and seventh innings in the Mariners' 4-3 win over the Twins at Safeco Field, giving him 841 hits in his three-plus season Major League career. That is one more hit than Hall of Famer Paul Waner had during his first four MLB seasons -- 1926-29 -- with the Pirates.

"I didn't know that there was going to be a record," he said. "For the fans watching, if they can enjoy this record, then that would be great.

"If there were only two games left and I had this record, it might be a little different, but I have fifty more games to go. It was definitely not a goal, but it's not a bad thing to get."

It is his second major accomplishment of the season.

On July 31, the Mariners' four-time All-Star became the first MLB player since Joe Medwick in 1936 to have as many as two 50-hit months in the same season -- 50 in May and 51 in July -- and is almost halfway to 50 in August.

No one ever has had three 50-hit months in one season, but the right fielder is 23-for-44 this month and still has 18 games remaining.

His 179 hits this season leave him just 21 away from becoming the first player in MLB history to have at least 200 hits in the first four years of his big-league career.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, Ichiro is just the fifth player to average more than 200 hits in his first four seasons. Medwick had 827 hits from 1933-36; Joe Jackson had 809 from 1911-14 and Earle Combs also had 809 hits from 1925-28.

"Nobody has that many hits at this point of the season," marveled manager Bob Melvin. "He gets hits against right-handers, left-handers, when he hits the ball hard and even when he doesn't hit the ball hard. He is just rolling."

That is putting it mildly.

In his last 23 games, Ichiro is batting a remarkable .510 (55-for-108). He is 60-for-124 since the All-Star break, raising his average to .362 -- a 16-point lead over Melvin Mora of the Orioles.

"What he is doing is just freakish," Melvin said. "He handles the bat as well as anyone I have ever seen and everyone knows he is going to be hacking. He expands the zone and still gets his hits. It doesn't take a strike for him to get a hit."

Ichiro now has six multi-hit games in his last seven games and leads the Majors with 57 multi-hit games this season