In Ichiro Suzuki’s first game in the Bronx in pinstripes, the Yankees defeated the Red Sox to add to Boston’s already deflating season.
Ichiro Suzuki is in constant motion in the outfield. Even between pitches, he can been seen stretching his legs and making phantom throws as he seemingly loosens every joint in his body in preparation for the next play. For those fans at Yankee Stadium who might have seen him grab his cheek and twist it on Friday, there is an explanation for that, too.
“Very excited,” he said after his Yankees home debut. “My first game here at Yankee Stadium was against the Boston Red Sox. In Japan you twist your cheek to see if it’s real or not, if I’m not dreaming. That’s really how I feel right now.”
As a member of the Seattle Mariners for almost 12 seasons, Suzuki played numerous games against the Red Sox, and he also felt the pressure and electricity of a playoff atmosphere at Yankee Stadium in October 2001 with the Mariners.
From afar he had seen the frenzy stirred up by a divisional feud between these clubs for more than a decade, and on Friday he had his first opportunity to participate in it.
But what he saw was a dim facsimile of the normally overheated rivalry. In Suzuki’s first game in the Bronx in pinstripes, the Yankees pummeled the Red Sox, 10-3, to add to Boston’s already deflating season.
The Red Sox hit three home runs off Yankees starter Phil Hughes, who won for the first time since July 1. But all three homers came with the bases empty. The Yankees made more of their power swings, hitting a pair of two-run home runs, one from Raul Ibanez and another from Russell Martin.
Curtis Granderson’s grand slam in the eighth inning pounded the point home: The Yankees, who improved to 6-1 against Boston, are much better.
The last-place Red Sox fell 11 ½ games behind the Yankees in the American League East. Suzuki’s debut came in front of a crowd announced at 49,571 (the Yankees’ largest regular-season attendance since Sept. 25, 2010, against Boston). He went 1 for 4 and scored two runs in his fourth game since the Yankees acquired him Monday in a trade with Seattle.
As he took his place in right field for the first inning, he doffed his cap and bowed to the fans in the right-field bleachers when they called his name (EE-CHEE-RO) as part of the traditional roll call.
“I wanted to take my hat off and acknowledge them, kind of bow down,” said Suzuki, who uses an interpreter. “But it is during play, so I was kind of worried about that. But it worked out good. If there was a ball hit while I was bowing down, those cheers are going to be turning to boos.”
There was no booing for Suzuki, but there was a smattering during introductions for Boston’s Bobby Valentine, who was managing in New York for the first time since Sept. 29, 2002, two days before the Mets fired him.
Before the game, Valentine sat in the visiting manager’s office and raised his eyebrows and shook his head at the symmetry the game presented. His first game back came on the night of the home debut of Suzuki, the Japanese outfielder whom Valentine first encountered 17 years ago in Japan when Valentine managed the Chiba Lotte Marines and Suzuki played for the Orix Blue Wave.
Those are both second-tier teams in Japan, but now the two were reunited on opposite sides of what was once — and most likely will be again — a terrific rivalry.
“Funny how it works out,” Valentine said. “Who would have thought that we’d be coming here at the same time. Just kind of figures, huh?”
Few in baseball have a better understanding of the significance of Suzuki’s joining the Yankees than Valentine, who returned to Japan for a second term as the Marines manager from 2004 through 2009. While there, he saw the daily reports of Suzuki’s exploits with the Seattle Mariners. He also witnessed the seemingly unquenchable thirst the Japanese public had for information and reports on Hideki Matsui, the outfielder who came to the Yankees in 2003 and excelled with his power and clutch hitting.
No matter how many Japanese players were in the United States at the time, Matsui and Suzuki were always the bigger stories.
“Everyone else was just a footnote,” Valentine said. “And that’s the national sports news every day, every paper. Headlines, back page. One for four was a headline because it wasn’t 2 for 4. A home run is a headline even if it doesn’t win a game, but because it was a certain number.
“They are mega-figures, in a country, not just in a metropolitan community. Matsui was. Ichiro didn’t play on the big team, so he wasn’t as much of a megastar.”
Matsui garnered more attention because he was playing for the Yankees. Now that Suzuki has joined the team, and played his first game against the rival Red Sox, interest in him has spiked to new levels.
“I would say for the next couple weeks and beyond, considering this could be a postseason berth for Ichiro, I think it’s going to be revved up,” Valentine said. “I think he’s now back center stage.”