Ichiro can bunt for a base hit anytime, but this year he's been hitting the longball as well. AP
8.61
Brewers left-hander Glendon Rusch's ERA in 15 starts this season. The worst ERA ever posted for a starting pitcher (minimum 150 innings pitched) is 7.71 by the Phillies' Les Sweetland in 1930.
Ways to improve baseball fights:
1
Hire Don King as official basebrawl promoter.
2
Two words: Drunken boxing.
3
Lions and tigers.
4
Thunderdome: Two men enter, one man leaves.
5
Loser gets ejected ... by catapult.
6
Put 'em on ice skates.
By Jacob Luft, SI.com
It is fitting that The Hulk is coming out this weekend, because what Ichiro Suzuki has been doing lately is straight out of a comic book.
On Sunday, he beat the Braves with his legs, stealing three bases and scoring both Mariners runs in a 2-1 victory. Two days later, he stunned the Angels with two home runs in an 8-4 win. He's hitting .449 in June after a .389 May, all while playing brilliantly in right field.
With seven home runs this year, the erstwhile slap-and-dash Ichiro already is within one of his career high. And he's outhomering fellow countryman Hideki Matsui, who has managed only six taters while transforming from "Godzilla" to "Groundzilla."
Ichiro's season, and those two games in particular, brings to mind a great story from Ty Cobb, Charles C. Alexander's biography of the Hall of Famer. Tired of seeing Babe Ruth get so much acclaim for hitting home runs, Cobb told Detroit
News columnist H.G. Salsinger that, for the first time in his career, he would go to the plate trying to go deep.
On that day, May 5, 1925, Cobb hit three home runs. The next day, he hit two more to become the first major leaguer to hit five home runs in two games. The feat wouldn't be matched in the NL until Ralph Kiner did it in 1947, and nobody has ever hit six in two games.
Cobb, who would end up tying his career high in home runs with 12 that season, was very much like Ichiro. They are both singles hitters, terrific bunters and basestealers who don't try to hit home runs, preferring instead to make contact consistently.
At the same time, it isn't unusual for prolific singles hitters to have an anomalous home run season or two. Heck, Cobb won the 1909 Triple Crown on the strength of nine homers; that's the deadball era for you.
Wade Boggs hit 24 home runs in the juiced-ball 1987 season but only reached double figures one more time in his career, with 11 in '94. Rod Carew belted 14 homers twice, but never more than nine in any of his other 17 big league seasons. George Sisler, a career .340 hitter who compiled all of 102 homers in his career, had 19 in 1920. Nap Lajoie (.338) reached double figures once, with 14 in 1901.
These are among the most gifted hitters in major league history. Were their skills so amazing that, if they wanted to, they could have had completely different careers? Could they have been power hitters instead? What about the converse to that: Could some of the game's great power hitters have been like these guys instead? Hank Aaron was a career .305 hitter with two batting crowns to go along with his four home run titles. Mickey Mantle's career average was .298, but it has often been said it would have been much higher if he hadn't tried to hit every pitch to Mars.
Getting back to Ichiro, his background does suggest a certain amount of pop. In seven full seasons in Japan, he belted 117 home runs for an average of nearly 17 a year. Granted, that was in a league where Tuffy Rhodes once hit 55 home runs, but it still provides evidence that Ichiro's power surge is not a fluke. Much like Cobb on that random day in 1925, he's probably just hitting home runs because he feels like it.
This week's topic: Most impressive rookie pitchers in the NL.
1. Dontrelle Willis, LHP, Marlins He's allowed a total of four earned runs in winning his past five starts, including a one-hitter against the Mets on Monday. The Marlins are 19-18 since putting him into the rotation on May 9, when they were 16-21.
2. Jae Weong Seo, RHP, Mets His numbers are almost identical to Willis', but he hasn't gotten anywhere near the hype as the Mets' meltdown continues.
3. Brandon Webb, RHP, Diamondbacks He's one of the main reasons the club was willing to trade Byung-Hyun Kim to the Red Sox. Webb's 3-2 record doesn't do him justice. He has averaged 6 2/3 innings in his nine starts, helping the D'backs win six of them.
Bonus pick: Houston's Brad Lidge has 48 strikeouts in 43 innings out of the bullpen and ranks eighth among major league relievers in adjusted runs prevented.
Welcome to the world of alternate photo captions:
Hopefully, Graig Nettles wasn't showing the kids how to stuff Super Balls in their bats. AP
Can Cesar Izturis handle the truth? Jack Nicholson wants to know. AP
"Whatcha gonna do, brother, when the 24-inch pythons come after you?!@?" AP
Green Bay's "cheeseheads" have nothing on these new "corkheads." AP
Every once in a while the Marlins make a transaction that doesn't reek of complete idiocy. Calling up Dontrelle Willis was one of them, and now they have decided to mercifully end Todd Hollandsworth's reign as their starting left fielder. Hot prospect Miguel Cabrera has been called up to take the place of Hollandsworth, who managed a grand total of 14 RBIs in 175 at-bats this season and was accomplishing nothing other than making the club look bad for letting Kevin Millar go. ... The Rockies made a nice move in trading whiff king Jose Hernandez for Mark Bellhorn, who has slumped badly this season but could come around in the thin Denver air. The best part of the deal might be Juan Uribe moving back to shortstop, where is he is simply sublime. ... Fantasy owners out there might want to pick up Tampa Bay's Victor Zambrano. In six games since being recalled from Class AAA Durham on May 23, he is 2-2 with a 1.69 ERA and has allowed only 33 baserunners in 37 1/3 innings.
Hopefully, Graig Nettles wasn't showing the kids how to stuff Super Balls in their bats. 
Can Cesar Izturis handle the truth? Jack Nicholson wants to know. 
"Whatcha gonna do, brother, when the 24-inch pythons come after you?!@?" 
Green Bay's "cheeseheads" have nothing on these new "corkheads." 
