Ichiro Suzuki made history on Tuesday night, becoming a near unanimous inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. But while Suzuki was a career .311 hitter during his 19-year career, he hit another gear when he took on the Minnesota Twins.
Suzuki was a Twins killer while starring for the Seattle Mariners, hitting .333/.362/.416 with five homers and 34 RBI in 119 games against Minnesota during his career. While Suzuki posted higher on-base percentages and slugging percentages against other American League teams (who he mostly played before the advent of expanded interleague play), Suzuki’s batting average against the Twins was tied with the Baltimore Orioles for his second-highest average among American League opponents trailing his .352 clip against the Kansas City Royals.
Current and former Twins praised Ichiro Suzuki onto the way of the Hall of Fame
Suzuki’s performance against the Twins – which included a .526/.538/711 line with a home run, two triples and two steals – has drawn praise from current and former players alike on his way to Cooperstown.
Former Twins manager and current Hall of Famer Paul Molitor told a story back in 2016 when he was the hitting coach of the Mariners in 2004. While Molitor tried to use his patience and his ability to get on base to his advantage, Ichiro had one of the worst starts of his career, hitting .255 toward the end of April before finishing the year with a record 262 hits.
“Shows you how great of a hitting coach I was,” Molitor told La Velle E. Neal III of the Minnesota Star Tribune. “That lasted about three weeks. Then I said, ‘Forget everything I told you in Spring Training.’ It wasn’t working. And then he took off.”
In 2022, Luis Arraez was on his way to his first batting title with the Twins before meeting Suzuki for the first time before a game in Seattle. While Suzuki heaped praise on Arraez, who has gone on to win three straight batting titles for the Twins, Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres, he also was honored to meet the legendary outfielder.
“It was amazing,” Arraez told Betsy Hefland of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “I’ve wanted to meet Ichiro for a long time. He’s an amazing guy. He’s one of the best hitters in the major leagues. … I didn’t know he thought about me. I’m excited because I know I’m a hitter, but like him? I don’t think so. Ichiro was a really good hitter.”
Current Twins manager Rocco Baldelli also praised Suzuki during the same trip praising the way he formed his own style coming from Japan in 2001.
“Ichiro had skills upon skills and he was doing things, again, kind of creating his own mold in the way that he did it,” Baldelli said.
In the end, Suzuki’s numbers speak for themselves with 4,367 career hits between his 12 seasons in the majors and nine seasons in Japan and his presence could help the case of other players who are on the outside of Cooperstown looking in. He stands as one of the best foreign players in the history of baseball and one that left a major impression on the Twins as he enters the Hall of Fame.