Shorebird of the Week - April 15, 2010

There's nothing that getting a couple bloop hits to fall or a streak of three or four hits in a row wouldn't do to right my SotW's ship. A lot is expected of Mike Planeta based on his solid season last year at Bluefield.

While Planeta is off to a .160 start on the young season (4-for-25 in 6 games) he is tending to score when he gets on and make productive at-bats: in each of his six starts he has either scored or knocked in a run despite the four hits.

But at Bluefield last year the 27th round pick out of Surprise, Arizona (and Glendale Community College) put up good numbers: in 61 games Planeta hit .288 with 3 home runs and 29 RBI - he also scored 29 times and had a nice .717 OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage.) At 21, Mike is also the youngest on Delmarva's outfield roster.

It looks like Planeta will be part of a four-outfielder platoon this season as the Shorebirds have some good talent out there. As I noted, once a couple hits fall in Mike's average will be more respectable but so far he's been quite productive nonetheless in Delmarva's 5-2 start.