Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-4 and scored a run Saturday, but the Seattle Mariners fell to their third loss in a row for the first time this season, losing 11-2 to the surging Oakland Athletics.
Suzuki singled to center in the fifth inning and scored Seattle's second run of the game on a sacrifice fly by Mike Cameron. But with the game out of reach for the Mariners, the Japanese rookie was taken out in the sixth. Before being pulled out, Suzuki beat out an infield hit to second for his 224th hit of the season, raising his American League leading average to .349.
Suzuki, a seven-time Pacific League batting champion in Japan, needs nine more hits to tie the record off 233 hits in a season by a rookie set by "Shoeless" Joe Jackson in 1911.