Look out, Joe–Ichiro’s almost halfway!The Mariners pulled off a 3-2 win over

Published 7:00 am Thursday, June 4, 2009

Look out, Joe–Ichiro’s almost halfway!The Mariners pulled off a 3-2 win over the Orioles last night on a game-ending single by Adrian Beltre, but the more notable developments are: 1) Ichiro extended his club-record hitting streak to 27 games; if he gets a hit tomorrow night, he’ll be halfway to Joe Dimaggio’s record, and 2) Beltre is finally progressing to the mean. The guy had been terrible all season, as Seely previously noted, but in the last week we’re seeing signs of life. Jeff at Lookout Landing was particularly inspired by Beltre’s homer off a too-high fastball last night:Seeing Beltre hit that homer as hard as he did confirms to me that the cause for his struggles has been in his head, rather than his body. Players who are broken don’t do that to fastballs at their eyes….That home run, by the way, is why, no matter how much grief I give Beltre for swinging at garbage, I’ll never be able to hate him. He took a fastball several inches above the upper boundary of the strike zone and put a charge into it the way few players can.Thus, Beltre is lovable for his lack of plate discipline, like a very poor man’s Vlad Guerrero. Though Geoff Baker says the third baseman’s recent turnaround is due to increased plate discipline. Finally, the MLB draft is next week; USS Mariner’s Dave Cameron takes a look at who the team might draft.