In the eighth inning on Thursday in St. Louis, Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki collected his second hit of the game. It was the 3,054th hit of his illustrious MLB career and it was a noteworthy one.
Ichiro passed Rod Carew for 24th all-time in MLB hits. Carew was born in Panama. Ichiro was, of course, born in Japan. Each of the top 23 in career hits were born in the United States of America, making Ichiro the record-holder for MLB hits by a foreign-born player.
So it's yet another feather in the cap of a future Hall of Famer.
Ichiro had 1,278 hits in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball before coming stateside. So he's up to 4,332 career hits in professional big leagues.
Here are the next five on the all-time MLB leaderboard for hits:
19. Tony Gwynn, 3,141
20. Alex Rodriguez, 3,115
21. Dave Winfield, 3,110
22. Craig Biggio, 3,060
23. Rickey Henderson, 3,055
24. Ichiro, 3,054
So Henderson and Biggio are likely going down soon. Otherwise it's hard to say because playing time has been tough to come by at this point in Suzuki's career and he has just 24 hits this season.
Still, he continues to climb up the charts. The top 20 all-time is within range and he didn't even have his rookie season until age 27.
