Orioles sure sound like they're in panic mode with Jackson Holliday

The Baltimore Orioles finally promoting their top prospect and the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball, Jackson Holliday, meant that all eyes were going to be on him. Holliday, the son of seven-time All-Star Matt Holliday, has massive expectations on his shoulders, expected to contribute right away on a really good Orioles team.

Unfortunately, things couldn't have started much worse for Holliday who has just one hit in his first 30 at-bats with 16 strikeouts entering play on Tuesday. His lone hit was a seeing-eye single in a game against the Brewers. For the most part, he has struggled to put the ball in play. When he has, it has been hit softly.

It's easy for any 20-year-old player who is struggling as badly as Holliday is to lose his cool and let things spiral out of control. The Orioles are doing their best to ensure that doesn't happen, written in detail by The Athletic's Sam Blum.

Orioles doing their best to make sure Jackson Holliday bounces back

“It’s not easy on this stage to not get off to the start that you want to,” said Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. “Especially if you’re 20 and you have one year of professional experience. You just try to put your arm around him. Try to make sure that he’s OK mentally. He’s just trying to do a little too much. He’s trying to get a hit. He’s trying to produce."

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde believes Holliday might be trying to do too much, as any 20-year-old would. It's completely understandable, especially when he has done next to nothing at this level. Unfortunately, when you try to do too much in baseball, that will often come back to bite you. That has been happening to Holliday.

“It’s about being process oriented. As hard as that can possibly be when you look up at the scoreboard and see what your batting average is.”

The Orioles are more concerned about Holliday's process than the results. They know that if the process is where they want it to be, the results will follow. There's a reason that players who fail seven out of ten times are Hall of Famers. Not everything will go your way even when you're doing everything right. The Orioles are just trying to make sure Holliday's mechanics are where they need to be for him to succeed. If they are, the hits will follow.

“Obviously I wasn’t expecting this,” Holliday said. “I knew what I was getting myself into. It’s the best of the best of the best for a reason. I guess I haven’t had a challenge yet, and this is the first one. … It’s obviously challenging, but I feel like I’m handling it the best that I can.”

Holliday is a player who has succeeded everywhere he's been. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 MLB Draft. He zoomed through the Orioles minor league system and is now one of the youngest players in MLB. Dealing with failure to this extent is new to him. The Orioles are doing their best to make sure that he doesn't get in his own head.

“I think you can learn from anything, especially failure,” Holliday said. “Definitely something I’ll look back on in a few years and be thankful for.”

Holliday is going to be fine. He's too talented of a player not to be. If anything, this slump will only make him stronger in the future, even with how difficult it is for him to deal with right now. It'll take some mental fortitude, but once he can rebound from this prolonged slump, he'll kick it into gear and take off. The Orioles just have to make sure that he doesn't let this slump get into his head too much.