Getty Jackson Holliday prepares for an at-bat during an April 16 game against the Minnesota Twins.
Baseball fans waited 633 days for Jackson Holliday to get called up to the majors. Fast forward seven games with the Baltimore Orioles, and those same fans are wondering if he’s ready for the MLB.
So much so, that Steve Melewski of MASN Sports took the time to fire off a tweet urging fans to breathe.
“Concerning Jackson Holliday,” Mewlewski tweeted on April 17. “This is NORMAL. Breathe Birdland and give it time. Team is winning as he learns/grows/develops.”
Holliday is 1-for-25 to start his Orioles career.
He’s got just one hit: a seventh-inning single in an April 15 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Jackson Holliday gets his first career hit!
Since his first career hit, Holliday’s struck out 5 times in 10 at-bats, with one walk.
Team manager Brandon Hyde has downplayed any concern over the former No. 1 pick’s slow start.
Hyde: ‘That’s Just a Young Player’s Approach’
Following a game where Holliday struck out twice in three at-bats, Hyde talked with Roch Kubtako about the rookie’s struggles.
When asked if the 20-year-old needs to be more aggressive, Hyde told MASN Sports, “Not really, no.”
He’d rather Holliday focus on the at-bat as a whole, instead of looking for any one swing.
“For me, I want him to be ready from the first pitch on to swing at a strike,” Hyde continued. “But if it’s not something he can drive, I want him to take it. One of his strengths coming through the minor leagues is his ability to take a walk and his ability to get in hitter’s counts, and when I see him kind of getting deeper in the count, I think there’s a lot of chase there and he’s trying to do a little bit too much to put the ball in play. And that’s just a young player’s approach of really trying to get a hit. I want him honestly to stop trying to get a hit and just try to take a good at-bat.”
Pitchers are a different animal in the big leagues, less likely to associate certain pitches with certain counts. Holliday has a 14-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in Baltimore, after posting a 12-8 ratio in 42 at-bats with the team’s Triple-A affiliate Norfolk Tides.
That’s a big reason Hyde labeled Holliday’s best at-bat a pop-up that resulted in no score.
“It was the out to left field a couple days ago,” Hyde told MASN. “He worked the count to 3-2 and put the ball hard in play the other way. I think there’s more in there. I just think he needs to get a little bit more comfortable. It’s not easy.”
Holliday is seeing an average of 4.15 pitches per plate appearance, well above the league average of 3.91. That number is more likely to plateau as he gets more time at the plate.
Patience leads to progress.
Holliday and the Baltimore Orioles will have to prioritize one before the other if they’re to ever have both.
Fortunately, the rest of this team’s offense is in the middle of a hot streak. They’re keeping his struggles out of the limelight as much as can be for the top prospect in baseball.
Orioles’ Hot Bats Top MLB Leaderboards
Baltimore is currently in the middle of a five-game streak with three or more home runs. That’s the franchise’s longest streak since August of 1996.
Following their second of three wins over the Minnesota Twins, Hyde told reporters that they’re “pretty dangerous, offensively.”
So far, he’s not wrong. On the season, the Orioles lead the league with 30 home runs, 4 more than the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Baltimore is 4th in RBIs with 102, despite being 10th in hits with 162. They’re also 22nd in the league with 148 strikeouts, displaying consistent contact for the Orioles batters.
Gunnar Henderson is tied for 4th in the league with 6 home runs, and Cedric Mullins is tied for 9th with 5. That includes a walk-off homer on April 18 to complete the sweep of Minnesota.
Enough Ced.
Jackson Holliday isn’t there yet. But because the Baltimore Orioles bats are calibrated to “go yard,” it’s neither here nor there.