Since making his major league debut in March, Shohei Ohtani has -- in one analyst's words -- made the big leagues look like high school ball, but on Friday it was his turn to feel like a schoolboy.

Getting to play in front of his boyhood idol Ichiro Suzuki, the 23-year-old Ohtani struck out in his first at-bat before getting two hits in another strong performance as the Los Angeles Angels' designated hitter.

"That's the tightest I've been swinging the bat since I came to America," said Ohtani, who joined the Angels after five years as a pro in Japan. "Did I want the player I've looked up to to watch me? I wanted him to see me doing well."

The Angels' three-game series in Seattle started a day after Suzuki announced he would stop playing -- for this season -- in order to transition to a job as an adviser to the Mariners' chairman. But in that role, he was on the field, in uniform, before the game, when Ohtani approached him from behind.

Standing with teammate Dee Gordon, Ichiro got a laugh from his young countryman by pretending to run away from him.

"I saw him coming (reflected) in Dee's sunglasses," Suzuki said.

Just as Ichiro had done 17 years before, Ohtani is making headlines in America doing what he did as a pro in Japan. In Ohtani's case that means both batting and pitching, and Suzuki said he was impressed by the youngster's ability when behind in the count.

"He has something," Suzuki said. "I think it's his ability to react. It looked like he couldn't touch (Mariners starter Mike) Leake's pitches, but finally he was able to do something with a fat pitch. He's been doing that since Opening Day."

"He has an air about him. If you've played baseball, you can tell."

Ohtani, who wasn't born when Suzuki turned pro in Japan as an 18-year-old in 1992 with the Orix BlueWave, said Ichiro made him feel like a schoolboy.

"I felt like an elementary schoolboy at a baseball clinic, who is just so excited to show what he can do," Ohtani said.

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