Playoff Adjustment Is Smooth for Suzuki

Whether or not Seattle gets past Cleveland today and advances to the American League championship series, Ichiro Suzuki has sealed his reputation as a money player.

Suzuki drove in the go-ahead run with his seventh-inning single off Bartolo Colon, and is leading all hitters in the division series with a .563 average.

“It doesn’t matter who is pitching,” Cleveland Manager Charlie Manuel said. “I think he stays back, keeps his hands up, hits the ball hard and gets the fat part of the bat on the ball. Against us, he finds a lot of holes, but that’s because he hits the ball sharp, and he hits the ball all over.”

Suzuki has twice played in the Japanese World Series, but there are no playoffs to get into that best-of-seven championship.

“I feel a lot of pressure to play a best-of-five,” Suzuki said through an interpreter. “Because I feel we cannot lose any of the games. I feel a totally different feeling in this best-of-five series.”

Clearly, the difference isn’t affecting Suzuki.

“I told his manager [from Japan] when I saw him in Seattle that they had done an outstanding job with this young man on fundamentals, on instincts,” Seattle Manager Lou Piniella said.

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Cleveland’s Chuck Finley starts Game 5 today, hoping for a turnaround from Game 2 when he gave up a pair of two-run homers in the first inning. Finley blamed it on too much adrenaline. “I’ve got to find a way to burn it all out ... and not take it into the game with me,” Finley said. “I’ve got to find some way to tame it and work with it.”

And how will Finley accomplish that?

A six-pack maybe,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know.”