Ichinooooooooo!

by joof on Jul 12, 2008 11:54 PM PDT

Yes, Ichiro was indeed offered a chance to participate in next week's Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. He was approached earlier this week by MLB officials and said he'd get back to them on it. An MLB source revealed this, so I asked Ichiro -- through his interpreter, Ken Barron -- what was up.

"Yes, I was asked,'' he confirmed to me earlier today. "But because of my hamstring, I decided not to participate.''

That would be the hamstring he felt tightness in this week. Which caused him not to start that series finale in Oakland, though he entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Kenji Johjima in the eighth.

Man, it would have been awesome to see Ichiro in the Homerun Derby. Stupid hamstring ruining all the cool times.

Also, the comments are appropriately stupid for the blog, so I suggest not reading them.

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I would've loved to see Ichiro show the rest of America that he can hit for power on command.

JI/Robert '08!

by Fin on Jul 13, 2008 12:11 AM PDT reply actions

New excuse, different year

This is just the same as last year with a new excuse. Last year was something along the lines of “Don’t want to out of respect for real home run hitters”.

I don’t think he could beef up his power as much as people speculate. I know he can put on a BP clinic on homerun hitting, but I think if he could magically turn the power on, he would be doing it. He did go something like 30 games this year without an XBH.

by batura on Jul 13, 2008 12:40 AM PDT reply actions

I think its more his approach to the plate

is not that he is trying to hit a home run or a XBH every at bat, but rather just get on base. Its the “role” of the lead off hitter to get onto base [insert know_your_role.jpg here], rather than make big hits, and that what he does. I think if he wanted to be a third or fourth hitter, he could, but he would probably have sacrifice the number of hits and his average in order to do it. I think he is just trying to make a hit, unless he is in a situation with RISP, in that case, he is able to crank a double if necessary.

I would love to see Ichiro in the Home Run Derby for novelty if not anything else.

JI/Robert '08!

by Fin on Jul 13, 2008 12:47 AM PDT up reply actions

This is correct

Ichiro once said, if people allow him to have .220 AVG, then he can hit 40 HR per year.

He is definitely not a power hitter in the regular games. He admitted this.

However, HR derby is different from the regular games. It is more like pre-game BP. We will never know what will happen until he actually goes to a HR derby.

by whwang on Jul 14, 2008 2:03 PM PDT up reply actions

agreed

Although anecdotaly, he has prodigious power (and his home runs seem like effortless bombs in games, rather than Harold Reynolds-esque squeakers) in BP, I think the truth is somewhere in between – he could hit for more power, perhaps in his prime he could have been a 30(+?) home run guy.

But, he could just as easily stink up a home run derby with a series of loopers into left-center and line drives into either corner… unfortunately, they don’t have an Inside-The-Park Home Run Derby (perhaps a team of little leaguers try to tag him out after he hits from a tee?)

M, period. Fresh, comma.

by manzell on Jul 13, 2008 1:18 AM PDT up reply actions