Ichiro Suzuki In Boston: How Red Sox Pitchers Handled A Hall Of Famer

Ichiro Suzuki played exactly 150 games against the Boston Red Sox, his fourth-most against any opponent and the most against any non-AL West team. It is an impressive total, considering he only spent three years in the AL East as a part-time player with the Yankees. Despite his short tenure in New York, if you Google “Ichiro Suzuki vs Red Sox,” the first video that comes up is from August 19, 2012. It was Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, Red Sox and Yankees in the Bronx. Ichiro hit two solo home runs for the Yankees as part of a 4-1 victory. Those dingers represent two of the six he hit against Boston in his career.

Despite only hitting six home runs against the Red Sox, Ichiro never hit one out in Fenway Park. He hit .269 over his 64 games in Boston, compared to an overall .292 batting average and .349 on-base percentage against the Red Sox. If you look at his numbers against all MLB teams, that puts the Boston firmly in the middle of the pack. But if you look at teams that Ichiro faced at least 100 times, the numbers tell a different story. Only Tampa Bay held Ichiro to a lower regular season batting average, slugging percentage, or OPS than the Red Sox. Of course, this could be due to the fact that he played more games against the AL East later in his career.

In 2001, Ichiro’s historic Rookie of the Year and AL MVP-winning season, he hit an incredible .429, with 18 of his league-leading 242 hits coming in nine games against the Red Sox. That was his third-highest batting average against any team. His .455 OBP against Boston was his fourth-best against any team.

By 2006, it seemed like the Red Sox figured Ichiro out. He hit a league-worst .195 against Boston in 2006 and a mere .139 in 2007. It wasn’t until 2011 that Ichiro got back on track, hitting .342 against the Sox. But even in that magic season where Ichiro had his two home run game against the Red Sox, he played 18 games against Boston and only batted .266. Ichiro finished out his Yankees career in 2014, batting .236 against the Red Sox over 19 games.

Just looking at the microcosm of Ichiro batting against the Red Sox shows how special of a player he was. 2014 was his age-40 season, and he had 17 hits in 19 games against Boston. He still was a full-time player for three more years with the Marlins, and in his age-42 season, he was worth 1.6 WAR. It was a truly remarkable career, and even if he never played for Boston, Red Sox fans were lucky to observe a little slice of it.