Trade sends Melo to Blue Jays

Friday, July 9, 1999 | 10:09 a.m.

FRESNO -- A year ago Juan Melo was rated one of top 100 prospects in minor league baseball by Baseball America and was considered the shortstop of the future for the San Diego Padres.

Today Melo is a member of the Toronto Blue Jays organization after getting dealt by the Padres on Thursday for a double-A pitching prospect.

Melo, 23, who was hitting just .196 with one home run and 12 RBIs in 44 games with the Stars this season, was traded for 21-year-old right-handed pitcher Isabel Giron, who had compiled a 7-5 record and 4.89 ERA for the Knoxville Smokies of the Southern League.

"It's a deal that I guess has been in the works for a while," Stars manager Mike Ramsey said before his team's 6-4 victory over Pacific Coast League Southern Division-leading Fresno here on Thursday night.

"Juan has struggled some this year. There was some question if maybe he had plateaued for us. ... Hopefully a fresh start can do him good."

Melo missed five weeks of the season with a broken left finger suffered while sliding on April 18 at Iowa. But he also was erratic defensively and Ramsey recently moved him to third base even though the Padres' farm system is considered thin on shortstop prospects.

"I think Juan had reached the point where he was expendable for us," Ramsey said. "It really wasn't working out for him here."

Melo was assigned by Toronto to its triple-A team in Syracuse while Giron, who was on Toronto's 40-man roster, will report to double-A Mobile.

In the meantime, the Stars will go with 35-year-old Rico Rossy at short and are expected to give surprising Jake Thrower most of the action at third base when he comes back from a hamstring injury that has had him on the disabled list for almost a month.

The Melo trade seemed to revitalize a Las Vegas (38-48) squad that had lost eight of its previous nine games.

Wayne Kirby, Mike Darr and Gary Matthews all belted solo home runs and David Newhan added a two-run double to back the solid pitching of right-hander Buddy Carlyle (8-4).

Carlyle limited the Grizzlies (46-40) to just seven hits and three runs over eight innings before giving way to Jim Sak (third save) in the ninth.

Game 2 of the four-game series is tonight with right-hander Pete Smith (0-0, 0.00 ERA) going against Fresno right-hander Joe Nathan (2-2, 4.99).