PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) – Ever the perfectionist, Ichiro Suzuki hopes to cut down on his miscues – he says he even made them while setting the single-season hit record with 262 last year.

“I feel like I’m a player who makes a lot of mistakes,” Suzuki said through a translator on Tuesday. “I make a lot of mistakes and those turn into outs because I made a mistake.

“Last year I made less mistakes than maybe the years past,” he added. “I want to go out and make less mistakes at the plate. When I do that, I’ll hit for a higher average and get more hits.”

Suzuki led the majors with a .372 average last season – his best in four years with the Seattle Mariners – when he became the third player in big league history to have 700 at-bats in a season with 704.

The four-time All-Star is hitting .339 with the Mariners after hitting .353 in nine seasons with the Orix Blue Wave in Japan – including .387 in 2000. No major league hitter has hit .400 since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. Tony Gwynn came the closest when he hit .394 in the strike-shortened 1994 season.

Suzuki recalls he hit more than .500 in high school. He won’t say he’s a candidate to hit .400, but he won’t say he isn’t, either.

In the season after erasing George Sisler’s record of 257 hits set in 1920, the 5-foot-9, 172-pound hitting machine from Kobe, Japan, will lead off for an improved Seattle offense.

During the offseason, the Mariners spent $114 million to add free agents Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson. Beltre, who signed a $64 million, five-year contract, and Sexson, who is getting $50 million for five seasons, will make Suzuki a more productive player, the Mariners believe.

Despite having 262 hits in 161 games, Suzuki scored 101 runs, a career low. He scored 127, 111 and 111 runs, respectively, in his first three seasons as the team’s leadoff hitter.

The Mariners have a new manager, Mike Hargrove, and a new hitting coach, Don Baylor, this season.

Hargrove doesn’t plan to do anything to change Suzuki as a hitter.

“I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I know not to mess with some things,” Hargrove said after the Mariners held their first full-squad workout of spring training. “Ichiro is pretty much the complete package.”

Notes: It has been a rainy Arizona spring, but the Mariners got in a workout on one field in the morning before heavy rain fell Tuesday afternoon. They also hit in their covered batting cages. … The Mariners had a 65-minute meeting with Hargrove and his coaches before they took the field. Hargrove talked to the players, but wouldn’t tell the media what his main message was. “It’s private,” he said. But Hargrove sounds like he likes his team’s chances in the AL West with the additions of Beltre and Sexson. “I think we have enough here to make a noise,” he said. Hargrove was hired to replace the fired Bob Melvin after the Mariners went 63-99 last season.