Ichiro Suzuki hit .372 two years ago

[Keyser Soze]

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"Much more likely is that teams are playing him differently. Ichiro has many fewer infield hits this year than last, and his batting average on ground balls seems to be telling us that teams are playing for the grounder—probably positioning their infielders a couple feet further in against Ichiro than they have in the past.

To try to take advantage of this, Ichiro is hitting many more fly balls, but it's not helping much. He's getting a few extra triples and some additional home runs, but he's on pace to create 30 runs fewer than last year. Ichiro is not a fly-ball hitter and it's showing."