MLB's top prospect gets in the hit column during Orioles' 6-4 win
Cover Photo Credit: Ulysses Munoz, The Baltimore Banner

It has been a week of everything for baseball's top prospect Jackson Holliday. The 20-year-old infield prodigy has experienced everything during his first five days in the big leagues from happiness to pressure to excitement to nervousness.
He lifted a big weight off his shoulders in today's 6-4 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. He recorded his first big league hit.
With Jordan Westburg on first base in the bottom of the 7th inning, Holliday spat on an Abner Uribe slider to begin the at-bat. Uribe then tried to go inside with a 99 MPH fastball. Unfortunately for him, Holliday was waiting for it.
He laced a hard ground ball past the right side of the Brewers' infield for a base hit. Westburg chugged for third base as the crowd erupted and rose to their feet, the adrenaline and the excitement of the first hit kicking in. As the play died, Birdland stayed up and gave Holliday a standing ovation. His family witnessed from next to the Orioles' dugout including father and 7x All-Star Matt, wife Chloe, and Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr.

During the postgame interview on MASN, Orioles play-by-play broadcaster joked with Holliday, asking if "he could breathe after the first hit," to which Holliday responded by saying "yeah" with a little smile on his face.
Of course, it has to be a sigh of relief for a young guy like Holliday playing with pressure as the game's top young talent. Prior to his first hit, he was 0-for-13 with an RBI groundout and 9 strikeouts. His first hit was no doubt a proud moment for him, and now he knows what it feels like to get a hit at the big league level.
"I'm very excited to get [the first hit] out of the way and I'm looking forward to tomorrow," he told Brown after the game.
Manager Brandon Hyde was just as excited for his new second baseman.
"It was a huge hit for us at the time, too," Hyde said in his postgame interview. "I'm happy for him, I'm happy for his family, and it's a special moment he'll never forget."
Many rookies go through a rough stretch to begin their careers. Another former No. 1 pick for the Orioles, catcher Adley Rutschman, went just 13-for-71 (.176) before cracking his first big league home run and then going onto become the 2nd place AL Rookie of the Year and the team's Most Valuable Oriole that year.
Now that Holliday has the first hit out of the way, perhaps he has shaken out all of the nerves. As he continues to settle in and adjust to the big leagues, expect this to be the time where Holliday breaks out with the bat and demonstrates to the fullest why the O's took him as the first overall pick of 2022.
Get ready for the Holliday season, folks!
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