Mariners
The art of Ichiro: Right hitter, right time

By Larry Stone
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Before a recent game against the Mariners, Cleveland pitching coach Carl Willis began to give his All-Star pitcher, C.C. Sabathia, the scouting report on Ichiro.

Sabathia stopped him short.

"I don't want to hear nothing about Ichiro," Sabathia told Willis. "He hits everything."

Sabathia pitched a brilliant game that night, a five-hit shutout — two of the hits by Ichiro, for whom hits this year have been copious and relentless, a barrage of connections that run the gamut both geographically and stylistically.

He can bash, slap, drive, dribble, top, chop and seemingly will his way on base, to the everlasting frustration of opponents. They have learned in his nearly four-year presence in the major leagues that the only thing more dangerous than a well-struck Ichiro hit might be a poorly struck Ichiro hit.

"When you can be confident as a hitter that all you have to do is put the ball in play and put it on the ground, and you have a chance, that's a huge weapon," said Anaheim first baseman Darin Erstad.

The next day, Sabathia was still convinced that it wouldn't have mattered if he had allowed Willis to give him the Indians' version of the ever-changing, and invariably ineffective, book on how to get this guy out.

"There's no book on him," Sabathia countered. "All you can do is make your pitches and hope he hits it at somebody. I throw him pitches in, pitches out. He hits to them to left, hits them to right, hits them everywhere. There's simply no way to pitch him, and no way to defend him."

And therein lies the rub, just one more explanation for why now, after 84 years, in the midst of a power revolution, Ichiro is challenging George Sisler's record of 257 hits in a season.

He is the right man at the right time, a leadoff man who rarely walks, a left-handed-hitting speedster who has a nuclear burst out of the batter's box, and a person who long ago showed that he could stand up to scrutiny and pressure that would wilt most players.

A veteran scout, who asked not to be named, said that no player presents the challenges that Ichiro does. Early in his career, it was said you could get to Ichiro by busting him inside, making him move his feet at the plate, a technique the Yankees used to hold him to a .222 average in the 2001 American League Championship Series (after Ichiro had tied a record with 12 hits and set a new standard with his .600 average in the Division Series against Cleveland).

"His hand-eye coordination is special, he's such an intelligent hitter that you can't pitch him any one way," the scout said. "If anyone says they have one way to get him out, they're wrong.

"You used to be able to crowd him, when he was thinking power a little more. Now it's different; he wants the hit record, it's very obvious, and he's swinging accordingly. That makes it more difficult for us. Basically, he's swinging for singles."

Baseball has never seen anyone quite like Ichiro and what Cleveland pitcher Rick White, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, called his "slashing, running, swinging, hit-everything-in-the-zone style."

Bret Boone has said often that Ichiro's batting technique is not one to teach Little Leaguers. But it is brutally effective. Teammates insist he has as much power as anyone — and he has the tape-measure shots in batting practice to prove it. But Ichiro's game is ultimately one of skill, deception and placement.

"No one gets hits as many different ways as him," Boone said. "Is he the fastest guy in the league? No, not even close. Is he the fastest home to first? Yes. I was getting on him a year ago. I said, 'You're not that fast. Cammy (Mike Cameron) could beat you in a race.' He said, 'Maybe. It is technique.' You watch him, and it is technique — how he swings and he's on his way."

But Ichiro is far more than just slap-and-run. Cameron used to say that Ichiro was playing chess at the plate, divining strategies to, in the immortal words of Hall of Famer Willie Keeler that Ichiro has yanked into 21st century relevance, hit 'em where they ain't. His unique twist is that he's fast enough that if the ball is hit slow enough, he can hit 'em where they are and still prosper.

Indeed, he is so successful at divining the opportune spot to hit the ball that Anaheim shortstop David Eckstein notes that whenever the Angels try to get tricky on defense and reposition themselves during an Ichiro at-bat, "it seems like he hits it where we were."

Of course, even if Ichiro hits the ball at fielders, they know they are under tremendous pressure to field the ball cleanly and get rid of the ball instantly. That even goes for grounders back to the pitcher or to the first baseman.

"You have to be perfect, or else he's going to beat it out," said Eckstein. "It comes down to positioning, and making sure you catch it cleanly. You pretty much have to get it and get rid of it. It definitely puts more pressure than if just about anyone else is hitting a ground ball."

Mariners hitting coach Paul Molitor, who ranks eighth on the all-time career list with 3,319 hits, is convinced that Ichiro tries to guide the ball to vacant spots in the field.

"From watching him watch his tapes, and the types of swings he takes given the defensive alignment, it gives me the impression he knows what a pitcher is throwing, and he knows what type of swing he has to put on those pitches to hit them in certain directions.

Single-season hit leaders Hits Player, club Year 257 George Sisler, St. Louis Browns 1920 254 Bill Terry, New York Giants 1930 254 Lefty O'Doul, Philadelphia Phillies 1929 253 Al Simmons, Philadelphia Athletics 1925 250 Rogers Hornsby, St. Louis Cardinals 1922 250 Chuck Klein, Philadelphia Phillies 1930 248 Ty Cobb, Detroit Tigers 1911 246 George Sisler, St. Louis Browns 1922 242 Ichiro, Seattle Mariners 2001 241 Babe Herman, Brooklyn Robins 1930 241 Heinie Manush, St. Louis Browns 1928 240 Wade Boggs, Boston Red Sox 1985 240 Jesse Burkett, Cleveland Spiders 1896 240 Darin Erstad, Anaheim Angels 2000

"It's a classic approach. Not a whole lot of guys have that bat control. It's almost as though — and this is more speculation than communication — if he hits a pitch off a certain pitcher to the shortstop, he'll watch the video, and to me I see him thinking about, 'How do I make an adjustment in my swing and hit that same pitch six steps to his left?' "

Ask Ichiro what he thinks about as he stands at the plate, as a reporter did during one of his regulated, usually non-illuminating interviews on Sisler's record he now gives after the first game of each series (when most reporters are scrambling to meet their deadline), and he looks annoyed to be asked to reduce a matter of such complexity into a sound bite. He laughs almost derisively.

"I am thinking that the pitcher is going to throw me the ball," he says finally, after a long pause.

Pressed further, he says quietly, "There's just too many things. It's tough to put into words what goes through a hitter's mind."

While teammates, such as longtime friend Shigetoshi Hasegawa, say he wants the record badly, the Mariners' decline into the depths of the American League standings has put a tinge of disappointment on the season for Ichiro, said his agent, Tony Attanasio.

"He's under no delusions of pressure at all," said the San Diego-based Attanasio, who recently visited Ichiro in Seattle. "He's comfortable with what's going on. The big thing for him, the real problem, if any, is that he's having such a good year when the team is not. For that, he doesn't feel good. He's very team-oriented, even though at times it may not appear so."

Last year, Ichiro admitted to feeling nauseous and short of breath during a second-half slump that coincided with the Mariners' fade in the pennant race. At spring training this year, Molitor and manager Bob Melvin talked to Ichiro about the importance of on-base percentage, suggesting that he be more selective at the plate and "try to do things leadoff men do that help create runs for your team," Molitor said.

All about Ichiro "He's unbelievable. I've never seen anything like it. ... Now, being his teammate, I can see why he's leading the league in hits and average. He's got a routine, and he sticks with it." Eddie Guardado, Mariners pitcher "He's pretty good about putting away a lot of distractions that go on before the game and after the game. It's almost like it's a welcome relief at times for him to just play the game." Bob Melvin, Mariners manager "He's got an unbelievable knack for putting the barrel on the ball. He has a huge margin of error. He doesn't have to hit perfectly. He can hit it where they're not at. He just has to hit it." Bucky Jacobsen, Mariners 1B/DH "You don't often get a chance to see parts of history in this game. Having a chance to watch his season unfold, and put himself in a position to have a chance in the latter stages of the season, it's been one of our few highlights." Paul Molitor, Mariners hitting coach "If he hits a ground ball, it's 50-50 he's going to beat it out. If you have a 50-50 hit ratio when you put it in play on the ground, that's pretty good. You're going to get a lot of hits." Bret Boone, Mariners second baseman

But when Ichiro hit .255 in April, they turned him loose.

"In hindsight, we were probably a little misguided," Molitor said. "Our intentions were good. But aggressiveness is a huge part of his success. He was willing to try some different things, and it might have attributed a little to his slow start. Once we saw he was a little out of his game, we made sure he knew to go ahead and do what he felt most comfortable with."

Melvin, however, believes that Ichiro has been more selective at the plate this year, statistical evidence notwithstanding. He had walked only 40 times heading into last night's game, and is on pace to surpass Willie Wilson's all-time record of 705 at-bats.

"He's laid off some of the pitches that last year he was probably coming out of his strike zone a little bit," Melvin said. "He's getting some better balls to hit. It doesn't necessarily work its way into walks, but he'll take some pitches that last year he might have swung at a little too much."

According to Robert Whiting, author of "You Gotta Have Wa," the definitive book on Japanese baseball, Ichiro has reverted to the hitting style he used in Japan, en route to seven consecutive batting titles, and in 2001, when he won the batting title at .350 and finished with 242 hits, ninth on the all-time list.

"It seemed that during the last two months of 2002 and 2003, he was pulling a lot of fly balls — which you didn't see him do his first year or, for that matter, in Japan that much," Whiting said in an e-mail.

In his latest book, "The Meaning of Ichiro," Whiting cites a conversation last year between Ichiro and Leon Lee, a legendary Japanese League player who in 2003 managed Ichiro's former team, the Orix Blue Wave.

"It was killing me that I was letting my teammates down," Whiting reports Ichiro telling Lee. "I felt so much anger and anxiety at times that I threw up."

"Don't worry so much," Lee told Ichiro. "Your problem is that you're getting stronger. You're only 29 and you're still developing as a player. Add to that the fact you know the pitchers in the majors better, so you're being more aggressive. This all goes to why you're hitting more fly balls. What you should be doing is easing up and trying to hit more to left field. Hit inside out and you'll be fine."

Says Whiting now: "It's quite clear to me watching on TV every day that that's exactly what Ichiro is doing."

What Ichiro is doing is unprecedented, but not necessarily unpredictable. For a guy who was likened to Johnny Damon and Kenny Lofton when the Mariners signed him in 2001, it has now become clear that he is an entity unto himself.

"He's got all the tools you would put as a prerequisite for a guy to challenge any kind of hit record," Molitor said, "whether it's hitting streaks, hits in a season or career hits if he played in the major leagues the whole time.

"Who knows? He puts the ball in play, he spreads the defense, he's lightning out of the box, he's got great eye-to-hand coordination, he studies the pitcher, and as a leadoff man, naturally, he gets those extra at-bats. All the components are in place."

Now all that's left is for Ichiro to bash, slap, drive, dribble, top, chop and will his way into history.

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

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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