Ok, this graph took longer than I expected to pull together. So I hope everyone appreciates it.

The question is whether Ichiro has ANY chance at getting to 200 hits. By my count, as of Sunday 8/14, he has 133 hits thru 119 Mariner games, an average of about 1.12 hits per game. That pace gets him to about 181 hits total.

So, my math says he has 43 more games to get 57 hits, an average of 1.56 hits per game. For comparison, if you got 1.56 hits per game over a 162 game schedule, you’d end the season with 252 hits. Now, he’s been averaging 4.18 AB per game, so at that same rate, he’d need to hit .373. So, it is a doable feat for someone like Ichiro.

However, here’s the bad news. In 2011, the highest hits per game he’s averaged is about 1.4 per game. So, he basically needs to have a traditional “Ichiro-like” stretch for 43 games, in a season when he has never been “Ichiro-like.”

In the charts below, here’s what you get:

Chart 1:
– Green line is the day to day pace anyone would need to be on to get to 200 hits.
– Red line is his actual day to pace thru 2011 to date, and then the pace he needs to accelerate to.
– Blue line is his projected season hit total over 162 games, calculated by the number of hits he had at that point in the season.

Chart 2:
– Ichiro’s Average hits per game.
– What Ichiro needs to accelerate to on a hits per game basis in order to get to 200.

Let me know if you have any questions. Math is hard.