Tonight, the scheduling quirk that gave the Mariners the dubious honor of facing the Yankees and Red Sox 12 games in a row ends. While the AL East’s dynamic duo clearly held the upper hand, going 7-3 against Seattle thus far, one eternal truth in favor of both the Mariners and baseball reemerged.

There is no stopping Ichiro Suzuki.

When the Japanese right fielder strides to the plate and begins his elaborate ritual of squats and squints, toe twirls and bat-pointings, he is a foe for which there is not yet an answer. No scouting report has solved the puzzle of how to sneak a pitch by Suzuki, whose hand-eye coordination, strength, and savvy allow him to wait on any pitch he wants, in any spot it is pitched to.

When Dave Jauss, the Red Sox’ advance scout, heard that one AL scout had recommended that the way to get Suzuki out was to pound him up and in early in the count and then work him away and low, out of the strike zone, he emitted an audible snort.

“If someone tells you that’s a way to get Ichiro out, they’re belittling Ichiro,” said Jauss. “Up and in and then down and away is what you want to do to nearly every hitter. With Ichiro, sure you want to avoid him diving and swinging away by going in. And then, yes, you try to get him out on his swings with stuff that’s moving down and away. But you’ve got to switch it up. There’s no one I’ve seen who hits the way he does.”

Sure enough, Suzuki punished the Red Sox in six games against them this month. He hit .409 against them, drew five walks, stole five bases, and scored six times, all while playing flawless defense in right field. Heading into last night’s game with the Yankees, Suzuki had enjoyed only slightly less success against New York pitching: a .389 average (7-for-18), with one home run and one triple.

“There isn’t a cold zone on a regular basis where you can always get him out,” Jauss said. “You like to get him to hit groundballs the other way, that’s a less damaging swing and you rarely say that with a singles hitter. He burns you with his speed for balls hit to the gap. You can’t stay in one zone.”

The Red Sox like to think that their catchers and pitchers can execute a winnable plan against Suzuki, who is in his fifth major league season. But a concession speech is already in the works.

“If there was a secret to getting this guy out, and we knew it, he probably wouldn’t have hit .357 against us last year,” said a Red Sox executive. “If there were one particular way to get Ichiro out, we would exploit it. There isn’t. That’s where our catchers are re lied upon to read his swing and make adjustments. He’s been known to chase pitches down, in, up, and away. Despite those chase zones he’s been known to hit balls – and hit them very well, I might add – in each one of those chase locations. So it’s basically a crapshoot.”

Playing in the golden age of home run hitters, Suzuki boasts a unique blend of skills that allows him to excel at collecting singles. Being a right-handed thrower and a left-handed hitter, Suzuki has exceptional strength in his bottom hand when he grips a bat. That helps his bat control, as he keeps his hands back, even if his lower body opens up when fooled by a pitch.

Where other hitters swing and miss badly, Suzuki can wait a long time before committing to a pitch, which helps explain why he fouls off so many of them. When he does connect squarely with one of his several different-looking swings, his momentum as a left-handed hitter already has him a step out of the box. His incredible foot speed adds another couple of steps, allowing him to turn an abnormal number of groundballs into infield hits.

Among his many accomplishments, Suzuki broke the all-time record for hits in a season with 262 in 2004, and he has an outside chance at being the fastest player ever to reach 1,000 career hits (Chuck Klein reached the milestone in his 683rd game; Ichiro has 978 hits in 672 games). His .340 career average currently ranks 17th on the career list, tied with Lou Gehrig.

Yet some consider him an abnormality whose greatness has been exaggerated.

“He’s definitely a freak,” said Keith Law, special assistant to the general manager in Toronto. “He has unbelievable hand-eye coordination but he’s destined to be overrated. All those singles don’t get out of the infield and when they don’t, he doesn’t advance runners as much. His singles are not worth as much. You can admire his physical abilities, and he certainly does things nobody else can, but you have to question his actual value over his aesthetic value.”

Indeed, of Suzuki’s 262 hits in 2004, 225 were singles and only 8 were home runs. While his batting average of .372 led the majors and his 36 stolen bases ranked second in the AL, his .414 on base average and .455 slugging average added up to an OPS of .869, good for only 21st in the league.

But none of those numbers can take account of aesthetics. Ichiro’s ability to work a count, to foul off pitch after pitch, to flare a single to the opposite field, to unnerve a pitcher and steal second – those are the skills that make him a virulent pest to opponents, and a breathing work of art to everyone else. While the Yankees’ pitchers are no doubt happy to be done with Suzuki until the end of August, their fans will be out of luck when it comes to up-close and personal glimpses of a talent as rare and beautiful as they come.

Mr. Silverman writes about baseball for the Boston Herald.