The whole world is watching
More than 20 million people in Japan watched Wednesday night's Ichiro Suzuki-Hideo Nomo matchup. Nomo became the first pitcher in American baseball to hit Suzuki, whose first career homer in Japan came off Nomo in 1993.

In Seattle, with Ichiro and without Alex Rodriguez, attendence is up more than 1,500 fans per game.

And a Japanese team is paying Tom Lasorda $1 million to be a consulant.

Cover me
Batting and slugging for batters who hit behind five premium middle order hitters:

Players following	BA	SLG
Jason Giambi	.217	.357
Manny Ramirez	.222	.333
Vladimir Guerrero	.231	.413
Mike Piazza	.189	.413
Carlos Delgado	.272	.439

(Source: Elias Sports Bureau, through Friday.)

Crosstown traffic
Players who have been up with most runners on base and in scoring position. Looking at it, one can understand what one NL scout means when he says "Ichiro's driving that Seattle car."

Runners on
John Olerud, Sea. 76
Paul O'Neill, N.Y. 70
Manny Ramirez, Bos. 69

Runners in Scoring Position
Bret Boone, Sea. 52
Olerud, Sea. 49
O'Neill, N.Y. 46
(Source: Elias Sports Bureau)

Killing me softly
The Braves' highest one-game Turner Field run total going into their game on Saturday against St. Louis was four runs.

I woke tonight to the sound of thunder, how far off I often wonder
Dante Bichette's OPS the last seven seasons when he hasn't batted in Coors Field was .764 (heading into Saturday's game).

In contrast, Trot Nixon's OPS in that time was .803, Troy O'Leary .795, Al Martin .795, Brian Daubach .828, Todd Walker .776. In Bichette's defense, in five of those seasons, he had to deal with the home/away disease that seems to stricken most Rockies hitters, and, as for his hustle, one NL scout got him at 3.8 seconds to first base Thursday night on a bunt.

Child is father to the man
Through Thursday night, the Mariners' Triple-A club in Tacoma was leading the Pacific Coast League with an 18-5 record, good enough for a seven-game lead. Their starting rotation was 15-3.

Mojo rising
Through Thursday, the Twins' attendance was up 102,000 from a year ago, the Dodgers down 103,000.

The 36,825 fans that came to the Twins' game against the Yankees on Wednesday night was their largest April-May midweek attendance since 1989.

Someway, someday
The Reds are the only team among the 11 lowest payrolls to have a winning record in both 2000 and 2001, through games of Friday.

The harsh light of day
Talk about learning as his career evolves -- Sammy Sosa is on a pace to walk more than 160 times this season. His career walk path dating back to 1996 is the following: 34, 45, 73, 78 and 91.

Brother, brother
On CJ's Baseball Page, the original and creative web site of Tigers pitcher C.J. Nitkowski, he asked a poll question: who will win the AL Cy Young Award? Pedro Martinez has 51 percent of the votes, followed by Jeff Weaver at 17 percent and others at four percent.