By Bill Center

This has not been a good season for the 5-foot-11, 175-pound, 19-year-old shortstop from the Dominican Republic.

For most of the season, Giron’s batting average hovered around .200 while making 25 errors during his return to Single-A Fort Wayne, where he won rave reviews in 2015 as one of the top newcomers in the Midwest League.

He slipped from being one of the Padres top five prospects last winter to №24 in the midseason rankings by mlb.Pipeline — the slide partially the result of his play and partially result of the 14 prospects the Padres have added through the draft, trades and international signings since the start of the 2016 season.

But Giron has recently showed signs of snapping out of his prolonged slump. Friday night he had his second three-hit game in a span of nine games, going 3-for-5 with a double, a steal and three runs scored for the TinCaps. He has raised his batting average to .222.

Giron is not out of the woods. In fact, there are now five shortstops ahead of him on the Padres’ list of their top 30 prospects.

He is, however, playing closer to the prospect who hit .285 last season with 12 doubles, four triples and nine home runs with 15 steals, 49 RBIs and 58 runs scored in 96 games in the Midwest League. He had a .335 on-base percentage last year and a .407 slugging percentage.

Remember, Giron debuted as the youngest player in the Midwest League last year as an 18-year-old playing his first full professional season.