With O's offense struggling, it puts even more pressure on the rookie prospects

Talk about being thrown into the deep end and having to swim, that is, in a sense, what is happening to Orioles prospects Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo.

These are top young talents, rated among the best in the game, that may be cornerstone players one day, but right now they are battling to get hits in a pennant race. And at a time when the team has lost games while the club is not scoring much. It puts pressure on everyone.

Yeah, a real challenge.

Over 51 games for the year, Holliday, age 20, has hit .170/.223/.298/.521. When he came back to the majors on July 31, he hit a grand slam and had an OPS of 1.072 in a 10-game span, hitting five homers with 12 RBIs. A few days later he had a four-hit game.

But now he is 2-for-26 with nine strikeouts the last 10 games. He did not start Saturday or Sunday in Detroit.

Mayo, in 15 big league games, is 3-for-35, batting .086 with a .286 OPS and with 19 strikeouts. He is 1-for-16 his past seven games.

It should be noted that veteran players are struggling too, in fact, many O’s players are now. This is not just about two kids.

But it’s been a rough go for Holliday and Mayo.

“This is a really hard game and they’re really young,” co-hitting coach Ryan Fuller told reporters Sunday morning in Detroit. “Their inexperience in putting them into an AL East division title (race) is really tough. The time of the year – it’s really hard. Once they find your weaknesses, they attack it until you make the adjustments. We would love to see the adjustments happen over one night, but it takes time and we’ve seen that with Adley (Rutschman), with Gunnar (Henderson), with the young guys that have come up. There’s a little period of seasoning before you come out and you feel like yourself.

“So, those guys, we believe in them, they are working so hard in the cage. I wish everyone could see the work they’re doing because when you see it out on the field sometimes, they want to execute badly. The seeds have been planted and we can’t wait for it to come to fruition. But it’s also remembering they are young and this is part of the process and journey.”

The rebuilding and losing Orioles of a few years ago would have easily weathered the struggles of young talent. But this club has lost seven of 10 games scoring just 21 runs and has now fallen three games back of the Yankees.

We keep hearing some are trying too hard, including the prospects.

“No doubt about it. These guys want to perform,” said Fuller. “They know we’re in the thick of it right now. They want to help the team win, so it’s one of those things just understanding – it’s not just the swing or the approach. Everything goes into it. Not just looking at, well I’ve just got to fix my swing.

“The pressure is real. It’s OK to say I’m feeling a little bit. What strategies did I use in the minor leagues to help me relax a little bit? So as hitting coaches, we want them to come to the cage and feel supported, feel confident. But also having high expectations for them because they have those high expectations for themselves as well.”

Fuller said he is not worried about Holliday losing confidence.

“It’s not a concern with him. I think any player, when you struggle, you’re going to have those tough conversations. You are going to have doubt creep in. But again, it’s breaking it down to what can I control today? I know that is a cliché to say but it’s definitely breaking it down to those small wins every day. What can we do to lay a brick today for a strong foundation?

“His background is so amazing and he’s such a great kid, that a little storm here and there is not shaking him. Luckily, he has an amazing father to go back to. Regardless how he played the night before, same guy shows up every day. And I’m really proud of everybody in this clubhouse. We come here ready to work every day. We have fun in the cage, but we’re ready to work every day. A testament to the group here,” he said.

I asked Fuller about how the coaches are holding up during this tough time. When a team is struggling, fans often point at the coaching. This team once was among the top one or two scoring teams in MLB, averaging over 5.00 runs per game. They have now fallen to sixth at 4.85 runs per game.

It's hard on everyone – coaches included.

“It’s a challenge, no doubt. We want these guys to perform every night. Being honest with them it’s, ‘We’re in it with you. We are feeling it too. We want you guys to be able to perform.’

“But remembering that, the process we have and we have talked about it a ton, controlling the strikezone. We saw it (Saturday) night, if they don’t throw you a strike you take a walk. When you get on first base, you apply pressure, you steal second base. And when we get guys in scoring position, then we take our good swings that hit the ball hard on a line with strikes in the zone. That’s never changed. It goes back to - nothing has changed here. The results, we are not getting it, so what else do we look at?

“We don’t try to reinvent everything we are doing here. But these guys, maybe we have to tell them a little bit differently, maybe we have to approach it in a different manner. But the foundation here is really solid and these guys know that, if they keep going after the right things, we keep showing up and we focus on the right things, it’s going to happen soon enough.”

So now, after scoring just six runs at Detroit, 17 during a six-game road trip and 21 the past 10 games, the O’s tonight face San Francisco lefty Blake Snell (3-3, 3.52 ERA), a two-time Cy Young Award winner.

In 12 starts since July 9, Snell has an ERA of 1.45. In that span he has allowed one run or less eight times and thrown scoreless starts five times.