Where did Ichiro Hit in the Line Up?

I don't have any box scores, but through various videos on YouTube, I have seen that Ichiro did indeed bat 3rd, but he also batted lead off with Orix.

Sorry in advance. I am not sure how to reach the box score in Japan.

Ichiro was basically a first batter when he started seven consecutive years as Batting Champion in 1994. A few years latter he occasionally started batting third because of his good RBI ability and improved power.

I believe he mostly hit the fourth in 2000, his last year in Japan. I think the manager then wanted to give Ichiro some additional motivation by hitting in the clean-up position after he had been so successful to have more to achieve.

I did a quick count of the 1995 season and come up with 114 games at the leadoff spot, 5 games in the number two slot, and 11 games batting third. (Don't quote me on those numbers - it was a quick count and I may have put a tally mark in the wrong spot. If this is for something official like a news article, let me know and I'll take more care. In other words, take this to be a generalization of the year.)

Looking at Ichiro's starting order position chronologically, he started the 1995 season batting third, he was them moved up to the second slot, then became a fixture at leadoff.

I do remember him batting 4th in the lineup a number of times one year, and he did his job driving in runs. I don't remember if he was scoring as many during that time period, though. The number of ways Ichiro could be used was all chalked up to "Ohgi Magic" in the press, where neither could do any wrong.

Sponichi's website has a really cool feature to see the winning percentages of all the different teams' managers. Ohgi did an amazing job. His percentages were sky high with Ichiro, then Orix goes to crap, and he comes back and gets them back over .500 again. Not many managers have proven themselves to be the real deal like he did.

His final year in Japan, he hit cleanup every game.

I already wrote an article about this very subject about a year ago, with a breakdown of his spot in the lineup over his entire career in Japan. Please let me know if that answers your question. I don't have box scores, but I did cite the starting lineups site I got that information from there.

Thank you!