Robbie Knopf over at isportsweb made an excellent argument that Ichiro Suzuki's off season is not due to age but due to luck. And while Knopf does an excellent job at using BABIP on ground balls and line drives to show that Ichiro is simply unlucky this season, this writer isn't quite convinced. What we need here to prove Knopf's case is a statistic that measures the MPH a ball comes off a batter's bat to see a little more what kind of contact a batter is making. Line drives are not created equal. Even if Knopf is correct, the Fan still hopes Ichiro does not make it to 200 hits.
That seems mean-spirited, doesn't it? The chase is compelling because Suzuki has done it for ten straight seasons. And he has an outside chance at doing it for the eleventh. With twenty games left on the Mariners' schedule, Ichiro needs 37 hits. Why would any writer want to deny a player from making that kind of mark for the eleventh straight season? Why indeed. It's certainly not...
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