During the Yankees’ recent series at Boston’s Fenway Park, Suzuki sat at his locker and clicked open his box like a sharpshooter opening a rifle case. He gently pulled out a bat and examined it from tip to handle, and every place in between. He banged it with the heel of his hand and listened to the tone that followed, then he ran his fingers across the bat to check the grain before carefully placing it back in the case.

Suzuki keeps four game-ready bats laid out on the top row of the spongy foam inside the case. Underneath that top row is another layer of four bats that could be promoted to game duty after he tests them in batting practice and assesses their worthiness.

Each of Suzuki’s bats is precisely 33.46 inches in length and weighs 31 to 31.75 ounces, depending on how much moisture is in it at any given time. If a game bat breaks, or if one collects too much moisture on the bat rack during a particularly humid night, Suzuki might exchange it for one of the lower four in the case and then use that one in a game.

“Whatever he is doing,” said Derek Jeter, a master hitter himself, “it’s working.”

Since being acquired from the Mariners in a July 23 trade, Suzuki was batting .331 going into Monday night’s game against the Twins in Minneapolis. Over his last six games before Monday, he was 15 for 25 (. 600) with 2 home runs, 3 doubles and 7 runs scored, numbers that earned him American League player of the week honors.

Suzuki’s case travels with him — on the equipment truck to the plane and then back on a truck and into the clubhouse in whatever city the Yankees are playing.

He has been using a bat case since he played in Japan, as a number of Japanese players do, and some American players have caught on, as well. His former teammate in Seattle, Chone Figgins, uses one, as does Jarrod Saltalamacchia of the Red Sox.