MLB

Yankees’ Ichiro proving he’s still a prime-time player

Let the record show that Ichiro Suzuki’s first Yankees curtain call came on national television during baseball’s most cherished rivalry.

What, you thought this guy would have his first big Yankees moment against Cleveland?

You can still wonder how much Ichiro will ultimately help his new team pick up World Series title No. 28. Yet no one disputed he would embrace this atmosphere. So he did last night when his two solo homers off Josh Beckett propelled the Yankees to an important 4-1 victory over the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.

When the new Yankee ripped his second homer of the night, a sixth-inning line drive to right field that accounted for the home team’s final run, the Stadium crowd chanted “I-chi-ro!” and successfully convinced the future Hall of Famer to step out of the Yankees’ dugout and salute the faithful with a flourish.

“I was embarrassed,” Ichiro said afterwards, smiling through his interpreter, Allen Turner. But he added, “It definitely felt good.”

BOX SCORE

Ichiro’s recent surge has the Yankees feeling better about their July 23 acquisition from the Mariners. After last night’s power display — he added an infield single in the eighth — the 38-year-old has a .344 on-base percentage and .506 slugging percentage in a Yankees uniform.

“He’s swinging the bat very well for us, and he’s getting hot,” manager Joe Girardi said of Ichiro. “He got hot on this homestand.”

Said Derek Jeter, who also contributed three hits: “Everyone knows what a good hitter Ichi is. I don’t care what the scoreboard or statistics say.”

Eh. Time will tell. Ichiro has enjoyed a nice stretch of about 13 games after registering over a season and a half with thoroughly underwhelming production. Maybe Ichiro will rise again as did Jeter, who faked us all out with an ultra-human 2010 and first half of 2011 before becoming elite again. Or maybe this is just a nice little peak among miles and miles of valley.

Given that the Yankees are likely to employ Ichiro for only a couple of months, however, every peak becomes all the more valuable. And his improved play, combined with the continued injury absence of Alex Rodriguez (which creates a greater need for Ichiro) has smoothed Ichiro’s transition into the Yankees’ world.

“Obviously, it’s a big win against the rival Red Sox,” Ichiro said. “More than that, I feel so good coming into this clubhouse after the win. It’s just like any other day. That’s what I love about this Yankees clubhouse.”

That’s spoken like someone who had tired of all of the losing in Seattle. And who doesn’t mind, furthermore, taking shots at the Stadium’s friendly right-field porch.

“If he had been a Yankee all of these years, who knows how many home runs he would’ve hit?” Girardi asked.

“A guy like my size, it’s still tough to get it out there, even at this ballpark,” Ichiro said.

Nevertheless, when he came up in the eighth, with a chance to go deep a third time, he took a healthy hack at a fastball by his countryman Junichi Tazawa. He fouled it off.

When a reporter asked him afterward whether he was trying to hit another blast, Ichiro smiled, winked and nodded.

“I swung too hard,” he said. “My neck hurts.”

His big night slammed the brakes yet again on a disastrous Red Sox season. Bobby Valentine, Boston’s doomed manager who first competed against Ichiro during 1995 contests between Bobby V’s Chiba Lotte Marines and Ichiro’s Orix Blue Wave, just marveled.

“He’s a special player,” Valentine said. “I don’t know if he’s a power hitter now, but he’s one of the good ones to ever play the game.”

He’s a prime-time player, even if he’s no longer a player in his prime. The curtain call brings him one step closer to True Yankeedom. Next stop, the postseason?