The 2016 season didn’t start out well for Cincinnati Reds infield prospect Alex Blandino. He suffered an injury in the World Baseball Classic qualifier while playing for Nicaragua and missed the first week of the season for Double-A Pensacola.

When he did return to action his performance was not likely where he wanted it to be. In his first eight games of the season Alex Blandino went 3-29 with a walk and five strikeouts in 30 plate appearances. He had a big game in his 9th game of the year, going 3-5 with two doubles, but he went just 3-20 the rest of the month, finishing out April with a .167/.196/.241 with two walks and 15 strikeouts in 56 plate appearances. While it was only half-a-month of playing time in total, it was the worst month he’s had as a professional at the plate.

When the calendar flipped to May, the Blue Wahoos infielder didn’t see much change over the first two days, continuing his slump by going 0-7, but he walked twice in that span – matching his total from the previous month. That’s then things began to change. In the nearly two weeks since then he’s gone on an absolute tear through the Southern League.

In ten games and 47 plate appearances Blandino has hit .342/.468/.658 with three doubles and three home runs. More importantly he’s walked six times and had 12 strikeouts, strongly improving his strikeout-to-walk ratio that he had shown in April and getting it in line with where he has been in the past.

Through May 4th the Pensacola infielder had a .413 OPS. Over the last 10 games he’s gone on such a good run that he’s raised that to .696, a rise of 283 points, or a boost of 69%. Blandino was never as bad as he was showing in April, and he’s not as good as he’s hitting now either, but his overall numbers on the season still aren’t where his talent level suggest he should be. The slow start to season, and the small sample size of the season as a whole still have his production looking low, but he’s moving everything in the right direction right now and should continue to see better numbers better than he posted in April.