Holliday brothers homer twice, Jackson in Triple-A rehab, Ethan goes deep again

Jackson Holliday’s homer mattered because it looked like a checkpoint, not a souvenir. The Orioles’ No. 7 prospect was in Triple-A Norfolk on rehab duty after Feb. 12 hamate surgery, and a go-ahead blast in that setting said more about his path back to Baltimore than any family storyline ever could.

That swing came after a stop-start return built around caution. Holliday, 22, opened the 2026 season on the injured list, began a rehab assignment with Norfolk on March 27 and played 11 rehab games through April 12 before discomfort interrupted the process. For a player who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft and signed for an $8.19 million bonus, the bar is not whether he can get hot for a night. It is whether the timing, contact quality and body hold up enough to get him back to the big leagues. A homer in Norfolk helped answer one of those questions.

It also fit a pattern. Jackson already had shown he can produce sudden power bursts in Triple-A, including a July 19, 2024 game in which he hit two homers and drove in four runs in a 12-11 win over Nashville. That was his first multihomer game at Triple-A and his second as a professional. So when the ball left the yard again in a rehab setting, it reinforced that the bat still plays when the swing is right.

Hours later, Ethan Holliday turned the family headline into a different kind of prospect marker. The Rockies’ top-ranked prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 21 overall prospect went deep twice for Single-A Fresno, producing the first two-homer game of his young professional career. The 2025 No. 4 overall pick out of Stillwater High School in Oklahoma had already put his 65-grade power on display with his first homer of the 2026 season on April 11, but this was a louder statement. One homer is upside. Two in the same night is a data point.

That is what made the night stand out beyond the Holliday name. Jackson’s homer was about recovery and readiness, a reminder that Baltimore still has a premium talent working his way back. Ethan’s night was about acceleration, the next Holliday showing how fast a prospect case can harden when the power arrives. Their father, Matt Holliday, was a seven-time All-Star and World Series champion, but the next generation has its own track to run. On the same night, both brothers gave scouts and front offices something concrete to track.