With Delmarva, Orioles top pick Jackson Holliday is embracing challenge to 'improve, not just prove'
Less than a week into his affiliated debut, the 2022 No. 1 overall pick is already learning the processes the Orioles have in place to help hitters sharpen their skills
FREDERICKSBURG, VA. — On the night of his Delmarva debut last week, Jackson Holliday struck out twice, thanks to a pair of hoppy fastballs he believed would dip below the zone but instead held on for strikes.
When he got to the field the following afternoon, Holliday asked hitting coach Brink Ambler to replicate them on the machine so he could figure out how to attack the pitch. It was a small interaction that demonstrated how Holliday, the top overall pick in last month’s draft and the latest addition to the Orioles’ celebrated farm system, is already using the tools and practices at his disposal to enhance a skillset worthy of such a lofty pick.
“That’s something that I’m definitely trying to work on… finding the little details that I struggled with the night before, or have the past week,” Holliday told me. “The low fastball got me twice in one night, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”
Ambler said: “I think one of the really cool things about Jackson is he’s very, very intrinsically motivated. You don’t get in the position that he’s in without being that way. … That’s an example right there of very, very much being tuned into the feedback the game is giving him and trying to figure out how to take that and, say, ‘OK, I’ve got something that is maybe not what I wanted. Now, let’s see if I can expose myself to that and figure out how to combat it.’ That’s just who he is.”