Don't worry, Ichiro will get his 200 hits

Texas Rangers reliever Akinori Otsuka just shook his head and smiled when asked about the stumbling start of Ichiro, his teammate last month on Japan's World Baseball Classic championship team.

"Doesn't matter," Otsuka said presciently, in English, before Wednesday's game. "He will get better. He will finish the season at .300-something. Ichiro is a genius."

Hey, Albert Einstein probably flubbed an occasional quadratic equation. Didn't stop him from conquering that whole relativity thing. Ichiro's out-of-the-gate slump will not stop him from accumulating the requisite 200 hits that have become his birthright.

The Mariners, as you may have noticed, have some serious problems to deal with this season. Wednesday's exhilarating comeback win notwithstanding.

Ichiro is not one of them.

Ichiro, despite the fact that he was still straddling the Mendoza Line more than two weeks into the season, is the least of their worries. And, I swear on the Baseball Encyclopedia I wrote those words before his vintage performance Wednesday, a four-hit effort in their 9-6 victory that lifted him from .177 to .227.

Expend your psychic energy, if you must, on the puzzling struggles of Felix Hernandez, the woes of Adrian Beltre, the maddening inconsistency of Gil Meche, the heart stopping appearances of Eddie Guardado.

Don't fret too much about the batting genius named Ichiro, who has hit over .300 — most of the time, waaaaay over — every year since 1994, and will surely find his way back to that rarefied status this season.

Oh, the time for long-term, hard-core Ichiro consternation will eventually come, because at some point, Ichiro's legs will stop propelling him down the line at lightning speed, and the infield hits that have always been his special gift, and his salvation, will stop coming.

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And that will be the precise point at which Ichiro will cease to be a superstar, unless and until he reinvents himself, a distinct probability for a savant like him.

In 2001, when defenses were unprepared for Ichiro's blazing burst out of the batter's box, he had an astounding 63 infield hits, en route to a .350 average and his first batting title.

In 2002, the number of infield hits dropped to 53, and went down to 45 in 2003 before rising back to 57 in the historic 2004 season, when Ichiro shattered the major-league record with 262 hits and hit .372.

Last year, his number of infield hits dropped to 34, and heading into Wednesday's game with Texas, Ichiro had logged just one infield hit this year, as good a place to start as any in explaining the .177 average he lugged into the game.

"We talked a little bit today," Mariners hitting coach Jeff Pentland said before the game. "I just think his swing has gotten a little loopy. He obviously isn't happy with what's going on. He's such a good hitter, I think he'll come out of it."

Ichiro, typically, batted aside any attempts to analyze his mechanical adjustments.

"I'm not interested in questions of that fashion," he said over the thumping stereo in the postgame clubhouse.

Pentland thinks so highly of Ichiro's short, compact swing that when he viewed it from afar, as Kansas City's hitting coach, he devised what he called "the Ichiro drill" to help Royals' hitters achieve that same stroke.

"It's to keep them from going out and getting the ball, which Ichiro never does — which he's doing a little bit right now."

Or was doing, anyway. Last night was classic Ichiro, a slap single just out of the reach of the second baseman, an infield single on a ball up the middle, a poke safely into left field, a blooper into center.

"This game is not a game of immediate results," Mariners manager Mike Hargrove said. "Everybody needs to be patient, myself included, and understand that these guys do have track records. He's fine."

Indeed, Ichiro has weathered these mini-crises periodically. Here's what one alarmist (me) wrote in early May 2003, after Ichiro had finished April with a .243 average, following his .248 of the previous September:

"Instead of beating out grounders, he's getting thrown out by a half-step. The line drives have been rare this season. He's hitting them where they are ... There is evidence that the league thinks it has found a way to attack Ichiro. One scout said the key is to throw tight, make him feel uncomfortable at the plate and move his feet.

"Meanwhile, opposing defenses have been able to cheat in toward the plate, making it harder for him to beat out balls.

"Sound familiar? So, by the end of the season, should Ichiro's answer back in 2003. He hit .389 in May, .386 in June, .342 in July, and finished at .312. And then 2004 happened.

A genius, even a slumping genius, is not to be denied. Not yet, anyway.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com.