MLB legend Ichiro Suzuki took the mound to face the best high school girls baseball players in Japan as part of an annual All-Star Game on Sunday.
The 52-year-old ended up recording a complete-game shutout, tossing 127 pitches and amassing 17 strikeouts in the victory (via MLB.com’s Jared Greenspan).
Ichiro explained that he wanted to test his pitching limits after the game.
“I wanted to see what my current limits were, and this gave me confidence in myself,” Ichiro told reporters in Japanese, per Greenspan.
The Hall of Famer previously spent 19 seasons as a right fielder in the majors from 2001-19, eventually retiring following a 2019 campaign in which he was 45 years old. He played for the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees and Miami Marlins.
The majority of Ichiro’s MLB tenure occurred with the Mariners, including a stretch of 10 consecutive All-Star appearances to open his career. He also won an American League MVP honor over that span, doing so as a rookie in 2001.
Ichiro became the first Japanese player elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in July 2025 before his No. 51 was retired by the Mariners one month later.
