Thursday, September 23, 2010

Seattle Mariners' outfielder Ichiro Suzuki extended his major-league record for most consecutive seasons with at least 200 hits to 10, with a single Thursday afternoon against Toronto. The longest such streak by anyone other than Ichiro is eight straight years, by Wee Willie Keeler from 1894-1901. Pete Rose had 10 season with 200 or more hits, but not in a row, whereas Ty Cobb had nine non-consecutive double-century seasons.

As seen in Ichiro's career statistics, he in fact has never recorded any fewer than 206 hits in a season (excluding the present one, which still has roughly two weeks remaining) since coming to the U.S. from Japan for the 2001 season. A few times, he has absolutely blown away the 200-hit mark, his best yearly totals reaching 262 (in 2004), 242 (in 2001), and 238 (in 2007).  According to Ichiro's Wikipedia page, in 1994, he "set a Japanese single-season record with 210 hits in 130 games, the first player ever to top 200 hits in one year."

 

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