The Major League Baseball season opened this week in Japan with the Seattle Mariners taking both games of a two game series against the Oakland A’s.
Of course the biggest news to co out of this series was that they ended up being the final two games of Ichiro Suzuki’s 19 year career in Major League Baseball.
Ichiro played in both games in Japan getting 5 at bats, but sadly he didn’t record a hit to add to his career total of 3089 in Major League Baseball. Ichiro spent 9 seasons playing in front of the Japanese fans as a member of the Orix Blue Wave; so it gave him a chance to walk away from the game in home country.
Ichiro joined the Seattle Mariners in 2001 and won the MVP and Rookie of the Year award as well as a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger. That was the first of the 10 Gold Gloves Ichiro would win; all in a row. He picked up 3 Silver Sluggers in his career and was named to 10 consecutive All-Star teams while with Seattle.
It’s not much of a stretch to say that Ichiro will be a first Ballot Hall of Famer when his name gets on the ballot. I’ve even heard some baseball people say that he should be a unanimous selection.
In his 19 year career Ichiro posted 3089 hits. He set the records for most hits in a season with 262 in 2004. He had 10 seasons all in a row with 200 or more hits. That’s tied with Pete Rose for the most consecutive. Ichiro won two batting title and has a career batting average of .311. While not a big time home run hitter even though there where people who reported that if he wanted to Ichiro could be a 20 plus home run guy. Ichiro hit 117 home runs in his career with a career high of 15 in 2005. Ichiro spent most of his career hitting at the top of the batting order; so he didn’t have as many RBI opportunities as some players might. He drove in 780 runs in his career, but as a player who was at the top of the batting order he scored 1420 runs in his career. It hasn’t even came up that he had 509 career stolen bases or the fact that he had 123 assists in his career. Ichiro had a career fielding percentage of .993. He assisted on 28 double plays in his career and made just 28 errors in a career that covered 20,030 1/3rd innings in the outfield. Remember this was all after he had out up 1278 hits in the Japanese League where he had a .353 batting average in 9 seasons.
Is there any question that Ichiro is a first ballot Hall of Famer? Do you think he’ll be unanimous selection?
The other news coming out of the opening series in Japan wasn’t good for the A’s.
A’s first baseman and Gold Glove winner Matt Olson has under gone surgery on his right hand the team announced. The surgical procedure involved a right hamate excision.
As of the announcement there was no timetable for Olson’s return, but there are some comparable cases and the typical return time is between six to eight weeks.
It seems like there have been quite a few of these surgeries in baseball lately. The Hamate bone is an irregularly shaped bone located in the hand close to the wrist. The Hamate bone is wedged shaped that is curved; the curve is described as a hook. Since several players have had the Hamate bone removed the procedure actually has a name; it’s called “Wilson’s wrist”.
It’s unclear right now how the A’s will handle the 1st base spot with Olson injured. Mark Cahna is the only other player on Oakland’s 40 man roster that has extensive experience at 1st base. With opening day just 5 days away for every other team they’ll be trimming down their rosters; so the A’s may be able to find someone to help fill the void Olson’s injury has caused. The A’s could also choose to sign Danny Valencia or Logan Morrison who are still available free agents. Of course neither players has went through spring training and you’d have to wonder how long it would take them to get ready for game action.
Olson may be tough for the A’s to replace. Not only was he a Gold Glove winner last season he played in all 162 games. He’s a middle of the order bat for Oakland and last season he hit 29 home runs and drove in 84 runs while hitting .247.
We should see very quickly what kind of move the A’s will make to replace Olson as they play their next game at home on March 28th against the Los Angeles Angels.
I’m sure that you’ve heard or have been asked the question this time of year; so “how’s your bracket”?
I can tell you that through the first set of games this weekend I lost 8 games. To be honest I don’t know if that’s good, but for me it is. More importantly I didn’t lose any of the teams I picked to advance to the Final Four like last season. I think I mentioned that last season after the first weekend I had two of the teams I had picked to make the final four knocked out. Now of course that can still happen to me this time as there are another set of games to be player Saturday and Sunday. Let’s hope my luck is better this year.
Luckily for my the 8 teams that I had get knocked out I didn’t have getting past this weekend; so there’s a chance that my bracket can get back on track if I picked well. Of course since I hadn’t followed much college basketball coming into this tournament I wouldn’t count on that. Of course some people might say that it’s a good thing I didn’t know too much about college basketball before making my picks.
So let me know in the comments how your bracket held up.
You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast live you can head over to TuneIn.com and listen to the podcast any time you want.
You can find me on Twitter @Burketime
Sports Time Radio 