COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou Baseball junior SS Ryan Howard (St. Charles, Mo.) was selected in the fifth round (No. 155 overall) of the 2016 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the San Francisco Giants on Friday (June 10). Howard is the first Mizzou player off the board in this year’s draft and he is the highest drafted position player at Mizzou since James Boone went in the third round in 2005.

Howard is coming off of a junior season in which he hit .295 with 13 doubles, five homers and a triple while driving in 27 runs and scoring 40 more. He was outstanding over his final 16 games of the season, hitting a team-best .381 with 13 runs and nine RBIs while hitting five of his 13 doubles and two of his five homers in that span, raising his average from .259 to .295. He also had eight of his 19 multi-hit games in that 16-game span.

A Francis Howell Central graduate, Howard has hit .284 in 163 career games played at Mizzou, starting all but three of those contests. He has been Mizzou’s starting shortstop since 2015 and has slugged 46 extra-base hits in his career while driving in 86 runs over three seasons. He spent last summer with USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team as the starting shortstop and was a preseason All-SEC First Team pick at shortstop by the league’s coaches.

This is the second time that Howard has been drafted by the San Francisco Giants after being taken in the 31st round a year ago. The draft will conclude tomorrow with the remaining rounds.

— Mizzou Athletics —