Uh Oh Ichiro

by ~ July 28th, 2010 at 8:21 am

June 21st:

The 2010 season has seen a lot go wrong for the Mariners, making it easy to lose sight of what has gone right.  Ichiro, predictably, is one of the pieces that did everything the Mariners needed him to do.

Ichiro has quietly hit .336/.388/.438 while playing great defense, something we’ve come to expect from the former MVP.  But 2010 marks another year in which Ichiro, now 36 years old, refuses to decline.  If you’re ranking Ichiro’s seasons, 2010 figures to land somewhere right in the middle with a good chance at being one of his five best.

It’s amazing how much can change in just over a month.  Since that post Ichiro has hit just .244/.306/.260.  Even worse, his July line reads .222/.274/.232, dropping his season line to .307/.361/.382 coming into play on July 28th.  Suddenly, this season doesn’t look like another Ichiro special.  He’s posting career worst stats across the board and he’s falling behind the 200 hit pace.

I’m not concerned, of course.  Ichiro was absolutely rolling coming into July.  I just find it amazing that one of the greatest hitters in the history of the sport can fall into such a miserable slump.  That’s baseball, I guess.  And if Ichiro still didn’t have the wheels at age 36 it would look a lot worse.  He’s been able to keep the average above the Mendoza line by squeaking out a few infield hits.  The complete power outage is what the slump is really about.  His batting average has dropped 29 points but the slugging percentage has plummeted 56 points.

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  • http://baseballhittingtipsonline.blogspot.com/ baseballhittingtips

    Yes, even the best hitters in the game get in slumps for various reasons. I could be wrong but here’s what I think.

    Today I considered the following thought as to why he could be struggling as of late. He is the only player on the team who any team would pitch around.

    I’ve been watching where the White Sox have been pitching him and they are throwing a lot to the outside corner high and low and nothing in-between. I did see that Danks made a few mistakes on Monday and left the ball over the plate and inside some and Ichiro hit the ball really well. I’m not saying he can’t hit the outside pitch but he’s struggling with it this week.

    Just a thought.

  • mw3

    Actually if you look game by game the slump really started the day Wak moved Figgins to the nine spot. It is seven weeks of .250/.305/.335 hitting and is the longest slump of Ichiro’s career.

  • dfpowell

    Does Ichiro feel like he is a one man show? Perhaps a change of scenery would do him good.