A take on the Holliday decision, plus notes on Friday's game and Bradish's outing at AAA

Before Friday’s game, the Orioles made a tough decision. They decided to send 20-year-old Jackson Holliday, the No. 1 ranked prospect in the sport, back to the minor leagues.

After he showed the club a hot bat in spring training and also at the start of the Triple-A season for Norfolk, he struggled in his first shot at the big leagues.

Just a couple of days before the Orioles would have guaranteed he would stay with the club at least for seven big league seasons, they called him up, showing this was not about service time. But the kid struggled. He played solid defense and showed plenty of capabilities at second base. But he failed to hit big-league pitching. At least this time, going 2-for-34 with 18 strikeouts.  

"Again, ultimately, do I like the way that this has gone in April totally? No, and I feel responsible for that,” Orioles executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias said before the game. “But it’s possible, just like it was for Grayson (Rodriguez) or Colton Cowser or any of these guys, that this was sort of a necessary development episode to be exposed to this before you’re fully ready for it. And now the work that you put in, you kind of know exactly what you need to do when you get back up there, and that’s valuable.

“It comes at a cost to get that negative feedback, but it’s valuable, and I guarantee you Jackson’s going to channel that well.”

Yep, there was negative feedback and adjustments need to be made. I like this kid’s chances to make them. Numerous players went on to be great that struggled early on. Numerous players went back to the minors.

So when might Holliday come back?

Elias is not revealing any thoughts on that and first may need to see the kid get regular playing time on the farm and get his bat going again before he can make any decisions anyway. He will get going again. But it wouldn’t shock me after all the attention that has been focused on him that he goes back and it takes a few days or games to put up big numbers again.

If his confidence is down at all right now, it surely won’t stay that way. This young man is too good, too mature, too focused.

“With the importance of him and his future, we’re going to try to prioritize his own development in the short term,” Elias said. “But this is a major league team that’s trying to win every game, and if something God forbid happens to somebody and we need Jackson and he’s our best option, that will be on the table. That’s happened in the past, too, and that’s the mode that we’re in right now. As long as he’s down there, and it may not be very long, we don’t know, but as long as he’s down there, we’re going to have a plan for him. He’s going to be putting work in. But he’ll also be ready for whenever his name is called,” said Elias.

In terms of putting that farm work in, Holliday only needs to look to players like Colton Cowser and Grayson Rodriguez as he heads back to Triple-A. Cowser was sent back last year when he hit .115 with an OPS of .433 for the Orioles. Now he is batting .328 with an OPS of 1.100 in about the same numbers of at-bats.

Rodriguez through last May had an ERA of 7.35 and gave up an opponent's OPS of .956. When he returned to the bigs in mid-July, through the end of the regular season in 13 starts, his ERA was 2.58 and the OPS was .590 for the Orioles.

They went back, put in the work, and returned ready to get the job done after making the needed improvements and adjustments.

The reset and a chance to get away and relax on the farm can work. It did for them and it likely will for Holliday. Delayed not denied.

“I would expect him to handle it really well,” said Jordan Westburg. “I’ve said this a lot about him, I think he’s one of the more mature people I’ve met. Not just young people. He just has a really good grip on life, what he believes in, and what he wants to be. So it wouldn’t surprise me if this is just a short stint to get some confidence back, get some ABs and come back up here and really help this club.”

O’s lose series opener: The Oakland Athletics, after taking two of four at Yankee Stadium, came to Baltimore and won the series opener 3-2 last night in 10 innings.

Craig Kimbrel, trying for career save No. 425, didn’t get it as the A’s tied it in the ninth and won it in the tenth.

At 16-9, the Orioles have still won four of six, eight of 11 and 11 of 16. They are now 6-3 in series-opening games.

Over the last four games, they have scored 16 runs on 29 hits, batting .213 with a team OPS of .686. Can’t score six or more every night.

On the farm: In his third minor league rehab game Friday, right-hander Kyle Bradish ran his pitch count to 77 and pitched well over five innings as Triple-A Norfolk beat Gwinnett, 5-1.

Bradish allowed five hits and one run with one walk and six strikeouts. His four-seam fastball averaged 92.5 mph and topped at 94.6 and his two-seam sinker averaged 94.2 and topped at 95.2. This was Bradish’s third rehab game and his pitch count has gone from 44 to 64 to 77.

Right-hander Trace Bright allowed one run over five innings and has an ERA of 2.41 as Double-A Bowie lost 4-2 at Richmond and was no-hit until the ninth inning.

High-A Aberdeen blanked Jersey Shore 5-0 as Juan Nuñez (five innings, five strikeouts) and Moises Chace (four innings, two hits) combined on the shutout.

Low-A Delmarva beat Fredericksburg 6-4. The Shorebirds had been shutout three straight games this week. So when they scored in the second inning Friday, it snapped a 32-inning scoreless run. Starting pitcher Luis De León, who tossed a career-high 5 2/3 innings, fanned eight allowing just one hit and one unearned run. Stiven Acevedo led the Shorebirds with two hits, three RBIs, and a career-best four stolen bases as Delmarva swiped a season-high eight bags as a team without being caught.