Ichi-Slow

posted by Dustin

Ichiro has a tendency to start off the season fairly slow, and Spring Training is really not much different this year. - Over his career, Ichiro has hit .299 in March and April combined, by far his worst month(s) of baseball.

This Spring Training, Ichiro is hitting a disastrous 0-21 (at time of publication). In other words, he's hitting .000.

This must be new for Ichiro, a man who has won 2 batting titles with the Mariners, and finished in the top 5 another 2 times. He has led baseball in hits 4 out of 7 years, and in the other 3 years, he finished in 2nd. He isn't really a player who is used to 0-21 streaks. He always seems to hit his way out of the slumps. Yet, it seems that this Spring Training campaign, there hasn't been a resurrection. Is there cause for concern? - My answer, NO.

While Ichiro hits only .299 in March/April, his career average in May skyrockets to an insane average of .370. We're not into April or May yet, but this trend shows that Ichiro will bounce back. Ichiro, as before stated, also has this uncanny ability to swing his way out of slumps. I really don't think that Ichiro is fazed by this at all.

"To tell you the truth, some of this is kind of fun... To be in a situation this early in Spring Training and have this kind of a bit of intense environment is something that I couldn't experience before. Basically, it's a situation where I need to battle within myself, mentally."

McLaren isn't fazed either it seems."He's fine. Put him down for the batting title. Put my name with it, please."

Even though it is said as a joke, McLaren shows that he has full confidence in his star to pull through this slump, and turn into the typical we all love and enjoy watching.I'm not worried one bit. Ichiro isn't worried. McLaren isn't worried. ESPN seems to be, since they have a running tab every day, but that really doesn't matter to me. Thoughts? Does his spring training slump show anything, or should it worry us?