Ichiro's magic number

Mariners speedster has Sisler's single-season hits record in sight

SEATTLE (AP) -- Ichiro Suzuki has surprised even himself.

"In Japan, at about the 120th game, I had 201 hits," he said. "To go at the same pace and do the same thing over here, I didn't even imagine doing that."

Suzuki was talking about 10 years ago when he had 210 hits in 130 games in Japan in 1994, the only time he had 200 hits in his native country.

The former Orix Blue Wave superstar is now flirting with one of the great records in baseball: 257 hits in a season, set by George Sisler in 1920 with the St. Louis Browns.

Suzuki became the first player in major league history to get 200 hits in his first four seasons in the major leagues when he homered to lead off the ninth inning off Kansas City closer Jeremy Affeldt in a 7-3 loss Thursday night.

A Safeco Field crowd of 30,962 chanted "Ichiro, Ichiro, Ichiro" after Suzuki connected for his seventh homer of the season. He reached 200 hits in his 125th game of the season, and after going 1-for-5 he was hitting .364, tops in the AL.

"This guy is unreal," Royals manager Tony Pena said. "He's a great hitter. He's a natural."

The 2001 AL MVP and four-time All-Star has missed only one game this season. The Mariners had 36 games left after Thursday night.

In 2001, Suzuki had 242 hits in 157 games. He followed that with 208 hits in 157 games in 2002 and 212 hits in 159 games last season.

Suzuki had 51 hits in May and 50 in July. He's primarily a contact hitter who slaps at the ball and gets singles. Since the All-Star break, Suzuki was hitting .458 (81-for-177). In August, he was hitting .449 (44-for-98).

The Sisler record remains a long shot, but it's not out of the question.

"At this point, I'm not going to think about that at all," Suzuki said through a translator. "I think you have goals that you can see and that goal is just too far for me to see."

Seattle manager Bob Melvin is amazed by what Suzuki has achieved during the Mariners' horrendous season.

"This season is killing him," Melvin said. "He has a way of putting it away at night, but it hurts him bad when we lose and we continue to go through stuff like this. He continues to come out the next day and prepares himself as well as anybody I've ever been around."

Affeldt gave up Suzuki's 200th hit on his first pitch to open the ninth, and didn't seem too troubled by it.

"Hopefully, he signs a bat for me," the pitcher said.

The Mariners, who have been in last place in the AL West since the second day of the season, wound up losing their 80th game to fall 34 games under .500 in one of the biggest plunges in the majors in 2004.

But the fan interest in Seattle is high and Suzuki said it's his responsibility to try to come through for the fans.

"I heard them," he said. "They were very loud. There's probably some fans who came out to see me hit this 200th hit. I knew I had one left to get to 200. I'm just glad and happy that I was able to get that."

Suzuki wants to be a role model as well as a great hitter.

"I say this a lot, but I'm a guy with a small frame who is not very big," said Suzuki, who is 5-foot-9 and 172 pounds. "To be able to come over here and have records, I hope in the future maybe that I can be somebody that they can look up to."