Chicago Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki Quickly Living Up To Big Contract

The savants always make it sound so simple.

Seiya Suzuki has quickly showed why the Chicago Cubs were willing to sign him to a five-year, $85-million contract in free agency last month. One of the top players in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the right fielder is living up to the hype.

However, Suzuki has no detailed explanation for his hot start in the major leagues that has included hitting two home runs Tuesday to power the Cubs to a 2-1 victory over the Pirates in Pittsburgh.

“I’m just trying to stay aggressive and trying to make the pitcher throw more pitches,” Suzuki said through a translator. “Obviously I’m getting lucky, and I just want to continue to contribute like this.”

Yet skill seemingly has much more to do with the 27-year-old going 5 for 12 with three home runs and four walks in four games. He has helped the Cubs to a 3-1 start a year after their record was 71-91.

Cubs bench coach Andy Green also has a simple answer for why Suzuki has been so successful in the first few days of his stateside career.

“He’s good. It’s not rocket science,” said Green, who was acting manager Tuesday while David Ross served a one-game suspension. “He can flat-out swing the bat.”

Suzuki is the only player in major league history with eight or more RBIs and four or more walks in his first four games since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920. He also joined the Los Angeles Angels’ Shohei Ohtani as the only Japanese-born players to go deep three times in their first four MLB games.

Suzuki has reached base at least twice, scored a run and driven in a run in each game. The last Cubs player to start the season with a longer streak was Mark Grudzielanek with five in 2003.

In spring training, Suzuki struck out in four of his first six Cactus League at-bats. While he has punched out five times so far in the regular season, the quality of his plate appearances has been outstanding in the eyes of the Cubs.

“I think early in spring, he was anxious to show some things, might have chased a little bit more, but as the season has gotten here, he’s really stayed in the strike zone, swung at good pitches, shown how strong he is,” Green said. “That strength and that decision making is going to translate.”

Pirates veteran left-hander Jose Quintana, who gave up Suzuki’s first home run Tuesday, felt the lack of information on the Cubs’ new slugger worked against his team and it will be able to game plan better in the future.

Yet …

“He’s tough,” Quintana said. “He has tough at-bats.”

Major league pitchers will eventually get a better read on Suzuki, especially in this era of seemingly unlimited information and metrics.

Japanese pitchers, though, never solved Suzuki in nine seasons with the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. He had a .309 batting average in 1,055 games with 189 home runs. Suzuki hit a career-best 38 longballs last season.

Said Green: “This is a really tough league, and guys are going to start to make adjustments, but he’s the kind of guy who you can already see is going to make adjustments right back.”

The biggest adjustment for Suzuki so far has been getting to know his new teammates in an English-speaking environment. With a smile, he admits that “everyone is relatively very bad at Japanese on our team.”

Nevertheless, it has been only a minor obstacle for a player who seems headed to becoming a major star.

“There are a lot of great guys on this team,” Suzuki said. “Many of them are trying to learn Japanese for me so they can communicate with me. Seeing them do that for me, it just means a lot for me, and I want to win as many games as possible with them.”