Fast times.(Seattle Mariners, leadoff hitter Ichiro Suzuki)

Publication: The Sporting News

Publication Date: 21-MAY-01

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Sporting News Publishing Co.

Led by electric Ichiro Suzuki, the Mariners are overwhelming teams with speed and finesse, leaving all of baseball grasping for words to describe their start

Lou Piniella is facing his biggest challenge in a week, and it's bugging him, bugging him, bugging him. He has tried every twist and turn he knows and used every strategy in his book, which is one of the biggest in the business by now, chock-full of maneuvers gleaned from 16 years as a player and another 15 as a manager on the roads of baseball. Today in Toronto, none of it seems to work. He's a frustrated man.

Finally, he throws up his hands and admits defeat, lie is reduced to looking for help from, of all quarters, the local media. The manager of the best team in the majors 'fesses up: He doesn't have all the answers.

"What's a word for `take off'?" Piniella asks. "Four letters. Second letter is `o.'"

This crossword puzzle, the one befuddling him, is a four-letter word for a large shaggy animal-a b-e-a-r. Good thing for Piniella the baseball game is about to begin. Good thing for him the baseball game is about to begin with Ichiro Suzuki leading off for Seattle.

Thanks largely to Ichiro--he prefers to go by his first name-at the top of the order, the games have been the easy parts of Piniella's days and nights so far this season. His beloved crosswords, his favorite pastime on the road occasionally may drive him nuts, as this one does last Friday in Toronto, but when it comes to the Manners, winning solutions have been a breeze.

Seattle ended the weekend with a 28-9 record and an outrageous 11-game lead over Anaheim in the American League West.

It's the middle of May and way too early for concession speeches from the Angels or the A's, although the Rangers, 15 games out mad in disarray, might be ready to wave the white flag. But Seattle has played the season's first six weeks with a near-foolproof formula of pitching, defense and speed that would seem to leave little room for vulnerability once the summer begins to wear on.

"It starts with our leadoff guy," Piniella says about Ichiro, who already is as much a sensation in Seattle as Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez or Randy Johnson ever were as Mariners. "He gets on base. He gets his hits. He scores runs for us. Those are the sorts of things...

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