10-year Marliniversary: Ichiro records 3,000th hit in win over Rockies

[Mike Ferguson]

Throughout Major League Baseball history, only 33 players have reached 3,000 hits for their career. On this day 10 years ago, Ichiro Suzuki became the only player to accomplish the feat in a Miami Marlins uniform.

In a 10-7 win over the Colorado Rockies, Suzuki became the 30th in baseball history to do it. His history-making knock came in the seventh inning off Chris Rusin.

Although the Marlins were in the midst of a great day offensively at Coors Field on Aug. 7, 2016, Suzuki had been quiet to that point. Miami led 8-6, but Ichiro was 0-for-3 with a strikeout. On a 2-0 pitch from Rusin, Ichiro turned on it, belting it deep to right field and off the wall over the glove of a leaping Gerardo Parra.

Suzuki cruised into third base for a triple. Despite it being a Colorado crowd, applause erupted as Suzuki joined Paul Molitor as the only players to triple for their 3,000th hit. Combined with his time in NPB in Japan, Suzuki had surpassed Pete Rose as the all-time hits leader at baseball’s highest levels earlier in the season.

As for the game itself, the Marlins never trailed. A two-run double from Christian Yelich and a two-run single from Jeff Mathis in the first inning propelled Miami to an early 4-0 lead. In the fourth, a two-run double from Martín Prado and a two-run home run from Giancarlo Stanton extended the lead to 8-1.

Colorado would get as close as two, thanks largely to a pair of home runs from Nolan Arenado – a solo shot in the fourth and a three-run blast in the fifth. Mathis followed Suzuki’s history-making triple with an RBI single in the seventh to extend the lead to 9-6. After an Arenado double in the bottom of the inning cut the lead to 9-7, Yelich capped the scoring with an RBI double of his own in the top of the eighth.

While Arenado finished with three hits and five RBIs for Colorado, Prado, Yelich and Stanton each had three of the 17 hits for Miami. The hit from that day that everyone remembers, however, came off the bat of Ichiro and on this day a decade ago.

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