Ichiro is leading the majors with a .369 average and Art Thiel is pointing out that no one is noticing.  He’s right!  I was thumbing through the sports section left on a table in a local watering hole and found a note about how well David Wright is hitting, and when I looked up the league leaders this morning, I found Ichiro was ahead of DWright.

Here is an interesting fact from Thiel’s piece, Ichiro now has 40 career 4-hit games.  The only active player with more is Pudge Rodriguez with 42.

Part of the reason we aren’t noticing is that the Mariners aren’t so good, they aren’t newsworthy, and it can often be easier for a guy to be a good hitter on a lousy club.  Think of all those arugments against Albert Pujols for MVP a few years ago, when it went to Ryan Howard.  But Thiel is right, we may not be surprised by his consitancy but we should still be impressed by it.