Originally published November 12, 2009 at 9:11 PM | Page modified November 12, 2009 at 11:16 PM

Ichiro claims Silver Slugger award

Ichiro on Thursday won the Silver Slugger award, emblematic of being the best hitter at his position in the American League.

By Larry Stone

Seattle Times staff reporter

Ichiro on Thursday won the Silver Slugger award, emblematic of being the best hitter at his position in the American League.

This is Ichiro's third Silver Slugger, having been honored in 2001, when he was the American League Most Valuable Player, and 2007, when he hit .351. Interestingly, he didn't win one in 2004 when he hit .372 and set a major-league record for hits in a season (262).

Ichiro hit .352 in 2009, second in the league to Joe Mauer's .365, and led the league in hits (225), multi-hit games (73), infield hits (59) and intentional walks (15). He also had the longest hitting streak in the AL this season (27 games) and set a major-league record with his fifth season of 220 or more hits.

Ichiro is the fourth Mariner to win at least three Silver Sluggers, joining Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez and Alex Rodriguez.

The Silver Sluggers are voted by managers and coaches.

Riggleman introduced

WASHINGTON — Jim Riggleman opened his first news conference in 10 years as a full-fledged, full-time, full-titled major-league manager — no "interim" tag to be found — by saying he didn't want to list the people he needs to thank, lest he forget someone.

And then, not surprisingly, the man who will manage the Washington Nationals in 2010 proceeded to list all those people. Riggleman, who in 2008 was the Mariners' interim manager, is grateful to be a skipper again.

"My feeling was, if there was some divine intervention that came upon me that said, 'You will never manage again,' then I would have got out" of baseball, Riggleman said. "I wanted to stay in the game, because I still wanted to manage."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Note

• Tim Hudson agreed to a $28 million, three-year deal with the Atlanta Braves, giving the team a wealth of starting pitching and setting up a likely trade to help the offense.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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