MLB: Ichiro becomes all-time hits leader among foreign-born players
Ichiro Suzuki is now the all-time MLB leader in hits among foreign-born players, ahead of Rod Carew, Rafael Palmeiro and Roberto Clemente.
Ichiro Suzuki banged out another two hits on Thursday afternoon, giving him 3,054 for his career. Ichiro has been on a bit of a hot streak over the last month-and-a-half after a very slow start to the year. Following the Marlins game on May 27, he was hitting .148 with a .188 OBP. It was very unlike Ichiro to struggle like that. Since then, including Thursday’s game, he’s hit .319 with a .360 OBP. It’s like the clouds parted and the sun came out, which is nice because baseball is much more fun when Ichiro is hitting well.
Those two hits also moved Ichiro up another notch on the all-time hit list. He passed Rod Carew and moved into 24th place. One more hit will tie him with Rickey Henderson and six more will pull him even with Craig Biggio. His next stolen base will tie him for 34th all-time with Harry Stovey. Six more steals and he’ll pull even with Barry Bonds. He’s also two runs scored behind Billy Williams, four runs scored behind Luis Gonzalez and eight runs scored behind the great Roberto Clemente. At 43 years old, Ichiro is a milestone waiting to happen on a daily basis.
Passing Carew on the all-time hit list has extra significance because it makes Ichiro the all-time hits leader among foreign-born players. He’s now at the top of the list of four foreign-born players to have 3,000 hits. The other three are Carew, Rafael Palmeiro and Clemente. Adrian Beltre will likely join this club in the next month or so and Albert Pujols should get there in 2018.
Let’s look at the other three foreign-born members of the 3,00 hits club, along with the next guy who will join the club.