Clearly Isaac Ballou has an approach that’s working for him.

The former Nansemond-Suffolk Academy baseball star recently completed his third year in the Washington Nationals’ minor league system, and those three years depict a steady upward trajectory to his career.

He reached greater heights than ever before in 2015. After returning for 70 games to the Potomac Nationals, a Class A Advanced minor league team, he made his debut at the Double-A level, having been called up to the Harrisburg Senators.

Ballou finished the season with the Syracuse Chiefs at the Triple-A level, the last to come before being called up to the Major Leagues to play for the Washington Nationals.

“I feel pretty good about it,” he said of his 2015 season. “Definitely my goal was to be in Double-A.”

Ballou spent about a year at the Class A Advanced level, also known as High A. He noted it is a particularly hard level for hitters because the pitchers are effective and there were only eight teams.

“You play each other so much that it gets difficult,” he said, because while batters know what a pitcher has, the pitcher also knows the batters well, too. He recalled playing one particular team nine times in the span of two weeks.

Through 70 games and 253 at-bats with the Potomac Nationals, Ballou had a .249 batting average, a .336 slugging percentage and a .319 on-base percentage, with 63 hits, 11 doubles, one triple, three home runs, 25 runs batted in and 27 runs scored.

He was excited to get brought up to the Double-A level, because “usually that’s where people become a lot more polished and you have pitchers that really throw hard,” he said.

Ballou made it clear that he was not saying High A pitchers don’t throw hard. Rather, he said that on Double-A teams, in addition to starters, “every reliever is throwing mid-90s, and that’s something different. I wasn’t used to seeing that.”

He responded well to the challenge, though. Through 49 games and 158 at-bats with the Harrisburg Senators, he had a .304 batting average, a .494 slugging percentage and a .383 on-base percentage, with 48 hits, nine doubles, three triples, five home runs, 24 RBIs and 27 runs scored.

Then, Ballou was called up to play for the Syracuse Chiefs as they finished their season. Through five games and 20 at-bats, he had a .300 batting average, a .400 slugging percentage and a .333 on-base percentage, with six hits, two doubles, two RBIs and three runs scored.

“I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished thus far, but I’m also very, very hungry to keep going,” he said.

Learning how to adjust to each level of play has been key to his advancement.

“The adjustment for me is strictly based off my approach,” he said. Speaking for himself and his teammates, he added, “Working with all of these hitting coaches in our system, I think we’re blessed.”