Soon after Jackson Holliday reached the major leagues earlier this season, it was clear there was a problem.
On April 26, the club returned to Baltimore after a series in Anaheim, following another flurry of Holliday strikeouts. The 20-year-old uber prospect was called into the manager’s office; he was being sent down.
Holliday had one specific weakness, one fatal flaw in surviving at the major-league level that had to be addressed.
“I was missing fastballs up,” Holliday told theScore. “If you’re underneath it, you have no chance.”
Before Holliday left the major-league clubhouse to return to Triple-A Norfolk, the Orioles’ hitting staff shared a plan with him that would get him back to Baltimore.
“When he got up here, it was fastball shape causing swing and miss,” Orioles hitting strategist Cody Asche told theScore. “We kind of broke that down for him. We told him, ‘You’re not going to be a fastball-miss guy, but there are some things in your swing that we see that’ll help you have success when you get back to the big leagues and you have to cover 98 (mph).'”
Read about his comeback in The Score
