Sunday night, Ichiro Suzuki set another Major League record by getting his 200th hit, giving him nine seasons in a row with 200+ hits, surpassing the former record of eight held by Hall of Fame outfielder Wee Willie Keeler.

A little while back when Ichiro got his 2,000th career hit, there was speculation over whether he'd make it to 3,000 hits in the majors, and whether that, combined with his 1,278 hits back in Japan, would make him the all-time hits leader. Would he lose a step and the infield singles that come with them? Would injuries derail him? Would stats-mongers think his Japanese numbers worthy of inclusion in the total for comparative purposes, or are they the equivalent of minor league stats?

I'd make a more radical suggestion: if Ichiro plays ten more years he can surpass Pete Rose's record of 4,256 without counting his stats from Japan.

Ten more years would get Ichiro to roughly the same age that Rose played till, 45. Rose played 24 major league seasons , and in his last five years got only 107, 72, 35, 107 and 52 hits. Rose just hung on to beat Ty Cobb, and in his final years was in baseball shape only in the sense that he was,like a baseball, round.

Even if Ichiro loses some of his speed, his physical self-discipline and approach to the game makes it entirely possible he will maintain his 200+ hit a season pace. Even if he doesn't get another hit this season, and loses 10 per cent of his annual average of 226 hits/year, he'd still be on a pace for over 4,000 career hits. If he has a few more monster seasons like he had when he surpassed George Sisler for the all-time single season hits record, he could beat Rose as well.