Altitude natural for Jordan Holloway growing up, now it’s foreign

With a 1.51 ERA and 43 strikeouts in eight starts this season after recovering from Tommy John surgery, Jupiter Hammerheads pitcher Jordan Holloway may be one of the Miami Marlins’ best pitching prospects.

If this were to become the trend for the remainder of his minor league career, Holloway could soon be the Marlins’ biggest Draft steal in recent history. He has the talent of a top round draft pick but was taken in the 20th round back in 2014.

Holloway committed to Nebraska-Omaha but eventually signed for $400,000. With a fastball that ranges from 95-99 mph, he showed top-of-the-rotation potential in Bativia in 2015 with a 2.91 ERA in 14 starts. He struggled in Greensboro in 2016-17 before Tommy John erased all but a month of 2018.  Striking out nine batters with no walks in 7 2/3 innings turned out to be a precursor to this season in Jupiter.

Much of his potential came from his athletic upbringing in Colorado, right in the outskirts of Denver. Altitude was a hard trainer for most athletes, especially pitchers. Most pitchers in the big leagues wouldn’t wish pitching in Coors Field on their worst enemies and the same goes for those in prep and college. However, for the initiated, it can make them that much better than the rest.

“Growing up, I didn’t know any different,” Holloway said. “I didn’t start traveling around the states until I was probably 16-17 years old so obviously altitude was always just a thin. You never really thought of it, it was just baseball to you. Now that I understand it, I’m 22 years old now and I’ve pretty much played everywhere on the East Coast, it’s crazy how much it plays a factor. I definitely makes you learn the hard way if you’re up in the zone. You get a pop fly, it can be a home run. Not even in Colorado, even in Low A like when I was in Greensboro, just places with higher altitude than like down here, it’s just like if something gets hit up in the air relatively hard there’s a possibility of it being gone so you learn to be a ground ball pitcher and work in the bottom of the zone.”

Holloway has become a full-time Floridan since last year and in a weird twist of fate, an element that was once natural to him became painfully foreign.

“I didn’t move down here until I had Tommy John,” Holloway said. “After that I’ve lived down here every single offseason. When I’d go home I would just be sucking in air and I couldn’t breathe. I could barely get through a warmup let alone a workout where I couldn’t breathe. It felt like my lungs were on fire. When I lived in Colorado and I came down here to Spring Training, I could just run laps around people because I just didn’t feel the same fatigue that these other guys did that lived more like in Florida because it felt easier. My lungs felt like they were 10X more powerful than they did when I moved and now when I go back and visit it feels like my lungs were on fire every single time I do anything like walk my dog with my mom. Like I need to take a break cause I can’t breathe. It’s crazy.”

Athletes who train in high altitude acquire more red blood cells which allows their blood to carry more oxygen. Juan Pierre had a similar experience coming to Florida after spending the first three years of his career with the Colorado Rockies. They get a natural boost to their muscles when additional oxygen is available at lower altitudes.

“It’s crazy how in shape you get,” Holloway said, “and the effects are relatively really quick. It normally takes me two or three weeks to get used to it and then after that I feel good again.”