Shorebird of the Week – April 12, 2012

Making his second tour of duty with the Shorebirds and now holding down second base for the team, Sammie Starr has lived up to his name thus far on an offensive level.

The diminutive Ontario native – listed at 5′-8″ –  played his collegiate ball at the University of British Columbia, which may have factored into his low selection in the draft; Starr wasn’t picked until the 34th round back in 2010. After a reasonable inaugural season at Aberdeen (.242/0/6/.615 OPS) where he got into 35 games, Starr began his 2011 exploits with 3 games at Frederick, going 1-for-9. Overmatched there, Sammie came to Delmarva for a few weeks and hit .194 in just 9 games here before returning to Aberdeen and putting up a solid .284/2/15/.828 OPS in 23 games. Starr, who will turn 24 at the end of May, has yet to appear in more than 35 games over the course of a season so his starting job with Delmarva may turn out to be an extended audition to see if he can handle this level of play and advance his career.

And after initially holding down the ninth place in the order, the hot start by Starr has been rewarded with a push to the number 2 slot in the lineup in last night’s series wrapup at Kannapolis. While he went 0-for-4 in the 2-hole, that still leaves Starr leading the team with a .333 average (7-for-21) in the early going – more importantly, he still has an on-base percentage of .500 and maintains a .476 slugging percentage (for an OPS of .976). Part of his knack in getting on has come from being hit-by-pitch 4 times this season already – all in 3 painful days at Asheville.

As long as he continues to be a pain for opposing pitchers to get out, we won’t care just how Sammie gets on base.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.