Orioles' Triple-A affiliate plummeting big time after Jackson Holliday promotion

It's a well-known fact at this point that the Baltimore Orioles have the best farm system in MLB. You can look anywhere in their major league lineup for prospect success stories — from Grayson Rodriguez to Adley Rutschman to Gunnar Henderson to Colton Cowser and so on and so forth. The scouting department has clearly had more foresight than the rest of the league for years, and it's starting to pay dividends in a massive way.

Last year, the Orioles' Triple-A team in Norfolk had the best winning percentage of any team by far (.649) and won the National Championship Game against the Dodgers' affiliate for the first time in franchise history, led by baseball's then-No. 12 (now No. 1) prospect Jackson Holliday. Before Holliday was called up on April 10, the Tides were 7-2, having just completed a dominating 5-1 victory in a series over the White Sox's Charlotte Knights. One of those games included an absolutely bonkers 26-11 win and another 13-1.

However, it's been a different story in Holliday's absence. The Tides went 2-9 from April 10 to April 21, which included a full six-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees' affiliate in Scranton.

The Norfolk Tides have gone 2-9 in Jackson Holliday's absence

It hasn't quite worked out for Holliday at the major league level, either. In nine games, he's sitting on a .033 batting average and .127 OPS with 16 strikeouts, and he was in his fourth game when he got his first (and as of Sunday night, when he went 0-3 with a walk, only) major league hit.

Both the Tides and Holliday seem to be missing each other, but both will need to get over it quickly if they want to turn things around. Holliday would undoubtedly rather stay up in the majors than go back down to Triple-A, even if he can get back to hitting like a monster there.

The Tides will also soon be missing Heston Kjerstad, who has continued to hit like a beast there even though the rest of the team has been struggling; the Orioles plan to call him up in the wake of an injury to Austin Hays.

Maybe having a longtime teammate and friend beside him in the majors will put some pep into Holliday's step. He (and we) can only hope for that, because the Orioles can't and shouldn't hold out much longer for his bat to pick up.