St. John's University Athletics
St. John's Baseball Announces 2006 Team Captains
1/20/2006 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Jan. 20, 2006
QUEENS, N.Y. - Head coach Ed Blankmeyer announced captains for the 2006 Red Storm baseball team on Friday, Jan. 20, naming juniors Robert Delaney and Chris Joachim. The two will lead the Red Storm into the 2006 season, which begins on Feb. 17, with a three-game series at Texas Tech.
Delaney projects as the team's top starter after going 5-2 with a 4.37 ERA last season. The junior lowered both his hits per nine innings and walks per nine innings rates from 2004 to 2005 and moved his career record to 8-3. He has a solid 3.60 career ERA and has worked 95.0 innings in two seasons. Delaney will be an important part of the 2006 staff, a group that could feature two newcomers - left-handers Luis Monell and Scott Barnes - in its BIG EAST starting rotation.
Joachim has been a significant part of the St. John's lineup in each of the past two seasons, starting in 90 games over that span. He has a .291 career batting average, 68 career RBI and eight career home runs, and is coming off his most productive season in a Red Storm uniform. In 2005, Joachim played in 49 games, improving upon his batting average (.293), runs scored (33), home runs (five), RBI (41), total bases (68) and stolen bases (nine) from 2004 to 2005, despite having nine fewer at-bats. He is part of a veteran core that returns for the St. John's offense after it led the BIG EAST and broke a school record with 427 runs scored last season.
The Red Storm was picked to finish fifth in the 2006 BIG EAST Preseason Coaches Poll. The recently expanded league features three of the five new schools in Cincinnati, Louisville and South Florida, with DePaul and Marquette not fielding baseball teams. In the same poll, head coaches named senior infielder Eddie Schultz a preseason All-BIG EAST selection as a designated hitter.
After its six-game swing through the state of Texas, which also features games against No. 4 Rice, No. 5 Nebraska and Texas State in the Crowne Plaza/Rice Invitational, St. John's plays games at East Tennessee State (March 3-5), Charleston Southern (March 7) and the College of Charleston (March 10-12), before opening its home schedule. The team welcomes Albany in its home opener on Tuesday, March 14, then hosts a three-game series with Quinnipiac on Saturday and Sunday, March 18 and 19.
