In his 1,402nd major league game, Ichiro recorded his 2,000th hit, becoming the second-fastest player to reach that mark–faster than Ty Cobb even. Only Al Simmons (birth name: Aloisuis Szymanski) reached the mark sooner, getting his first 2,000 in 1,390 games. Like Ichiro, Simmons had an unorthodox batting stance, he was known as “Bucketfoot Al” because of the way he strode toward third-base from the right-handed batters box as he swung.

Okay, enough history. The Mariners lost, wasting a nice start by Doug Fister, when Shawn Kelley allowed a grand slam in the ninth inning.

The Tacoma Rainiers–your Mariners AAA farm team–can complete an incredible late-season pennant push tomorrow afternoon in their final game of the season. Tied with Colorado Springs after 143 games, the Rainiers would win the division by percentage points with a win tomorrow at Cheney Stadium.

If not for a very mathy Pacific Coast League ruling earlier this week, tomorrow’s game would be meaningless. The league ruled that they will round the Rainiers’ winning percentage to three decimal points instead of four decimal points.

Should the Rainiers win tomorrow, their winning percentage (rounded to four decimal places) will be .5139, the Sky Sox will be .5141. The Sky Sox are winners. Rounded to just three decimal places, though, the teams have identical winning percentages of .514, and the championship goes to the team with the best winning percentage against division opponents. The Rainiers hold this tiebreaker.

Could anything be more boring than the preceding two paragraphs? No chance. But the upshot is very exciting: Tomorrow’s game, at 1:35 at Cheney Stadium, is essentially a one-game playoff. The winner is the PCL North champion, and advances to the playoffs. The winner goes home.

All the math crap is necessitated by the fact that Colorado Springs had two games rained out earlier in the season that could not be made up. That and the fact that the Sky Sox collapsed in the season’s final two weeks, blowing a 7.5 game lead.

No word yet on pitching matchups. If you want tickets, go here.

The Storm’s loss at Minnesota, coupled with Phoenix’s win over Atlanta, means that the Mercury have clinched the #1-seed in the Western Conference. The Storm, who had a mathematical chance at catching Phoenix as they host them Thursday at KeyArena, are now consigned to the #2-seed in the conference. They can’t drop lower than that.

As a #2-seed, the Storm would play the #3-seeded team in the Western Conference in a best-of-three series, with games 2 and 3 (if necc.) at KeyArena. This Wikipedia article has great info about the WNBA playoff format.

The Storm’s playoff opponent has yet to be decided — it will be either Los Angeles, who eliminated the Storm from the playoffs last season, defending Western Conference champions San Antonio, or Minnesota. Here’s the WNBA’s helpful playoff picture page.

Lauren Jackson again didn’t play for the Storm, it’s now a sure thing that she’ll rest her injured back until the playoffs, which begin September 16. Sue Bird didn’t play against Minnesota either. Tanisha Wright led the team with 20 points.

Garfield High won for the first time in nearly two years (more on CDNews), and only the second time since 2005, beating rivals Franklin 14-6. Tony Wroten, a junior who’s one of the top basketball recruits in the nation, caught an 11-yard touchdown pass and had two interceptions in the game. Pierre Wright, another basketball player, had 97 yards rushing.

Wroten’s had a fun couple of weeks–on August 22 he played in the Boost Mobile Elite 24 game in New York City, as did Kentwood High’s Josh Smith. Wroten and Smith even got a little run at Madison Square Garden as part of their visit to NYC. Smith, incidentally, is also playing football this year, though I can’t tell if he played in Kentwood’s season-opening win.

Garfield’s next game is Thursday at 5 p.m. at Memorial Stadium vs. Inglemoor. I may try to catch that!

Photo courtesy of indefatigable Neighborlogs intern Lucas Anderson.