Ahead of the Orioles’ series against the New York Mets, Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde was asked about the youngest player on his team.
In his answer, Hyde said the word “love” five times to describe how he feels about rookie Gunnar Henderson. He loves the 22-year-old’s “passion,” his “energy,” his “emotion.” But there’s a tiny aspect of Henderson’s game that Hyde doesn’t love.
When he grounds out, he always sprints down the first base line trying to beat the throw, lunging as he approaches first base and forcefully slamming his foot attached to his 220-pound frame on first base.
“That drives me nuts,” Hyde said.
Those moments, though, are a result of an aggressive play style that has allowed Henderson to find his groove and turn his season around.
“He just plays so hard. He’s so awesome,” Hyde said with a smile. “I just want to see him hit the base a little easier, honestly. But he’s so young and he wants to get there so bad and it’s a great problem to have, having him go too hard sometimes.”
After a slow start to the season, Henderson has emerged this summer as one of the Orioles’ best players and re-established himself as the American League Rookie of the Year frontrunner. His 3.2 wins above replacement on Baseball-Reference leads Baltimore, and as was the case before the season, every major sportsbook has Henderson as the favorite to become the first Oriole to win the award since Gregg Olsen in 1989.
“He’s coming into his own,” co-hitting coach Matt Borgschulte said. “It’s always great to see guys have success. It’s great to see young guys have success. But it’s nice to see guys that work their tails off and make adjustments that need to be made and they come through.
“It’s really hard. This game is really, really hard. You can make adjustments and still not have success come. For him to put in the work and be willing to make adjustments, it’s just been great to watch the confidence that he’s playing with. The way that he plays the game is so fun to watch.”
The players Henderson has been the past three months is almost unrecognizable to the one he was to begin the season. Through the first six weeks, Henderson was a patient — perhaps too patient — hitter who was swinging and missing at a high rate. Since, he’s been far more aggressive and making contact more often to augment the impact of a 92.3 mph average exit velocity that ranks in the top 10% of major league hitters, according to Statcast.
In his first 100 at-bats, Henderson, the sport’s consensus No. 1 prospect at the time, hit .170 with a .651 OPS and just three home runs. In his past 72 games entering Saturday, Henderson hit .262 with a .831 OPS and 16 home runs, four triples and 44 RBIs — a stretch that includes the .994 OPS he put up in June to win AL Rookie of the Month honors. On the season, he’s slashing .237/.321/.460 — good for a .781 OPS.
“It was challenging, especially if you’re 21 years old, and a lot of hype, people expecting things out of you, the way he handled all of that, that’s been the most impressive thing for me,” Hyde said. “Now he’s really just relaxing and playing and playing with confidence. And for the last couple of months, he’s just been a really, really good player in so many areas.”
In his first 33 games, Henderson walked 25 times — a rate of 19.8% that was among the majors’ leaders. In the three months since, he’s accepted just 20 free passes for a rate of 6.8%.
Henderson said he’s more aware now of how pitchers are attacking him than he was early in the season. He doesn’t want to be “overly aggressive,” but he also recognizes that a pitch early in the plate appearance might be his best opportunity to put the barrel on one.
“I’ve been seeing the ball well,” Henderson said. “It’s just getting in the mindset of telling yourself you’re going to swing and then when it’s a ball say ‘no.’ It’s harder to go from, ‘No, I’m not going to swing’ to ‘Oh, there it is, yes.’ Because then you’re late, fouling it off or completely missing. Just got to be in that mindset of getting your swing off and then if it’s a ball trusting yourself that you’re not going to swing at it.”
Looking at his success early in counts, it’s not a surprise that Henderson is leaning into that approach. He’s put the ball in play on the first pitch in 45 of his plate appearances. In those instances, he’s hitting .500 with a .955 slugging percentage. His 1.443 OPS on first pitches — a sample that doesn’t include swings and misses or foul balls — ranks fifth in the majors among batters with at least 40 such at-bats behind Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber, Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman and Washington Nationals outfielder Lane Thomas. Henderson has a 1.207 OPS on 1-0 counts and a .888 OPS in 1-1 counts.
“He’s done a great job of improving that aggressiveness from the beginning of the season when he was maybe a little bit more passive,” Borgschulte said. “One part of it is just him realizing that he can hit those pitches. It doesn’t have to be perfect right down the middle for him to attack it, he can do damage on a lot of different pitches if he’s one time.
“Along with the fact that maybe in the minor leagues you get a couple pitches more to hit than in the major leagues. Letting those go by was not as consequential, whereas now, letting those go by and now you get the nasty stuff is a little more challenging.”
His success at the plate isn’t the only improvement Henderson has made after his slow start. He struggled defensively to begin the year, but he’s been a plus defender since. After ranking as the Orioles’ worst defender in Statcast’s outs above average in April with minus-5, he’s been one of their best with six since May.
He’s also been more willing to show off his speed — which ranks in the top 12% of qualified big leaguers — and base running ability, turning singles into doubles and doubles into triples. Hyde said Henderson is one of his players whom he has to “pull back” because of how eager they are to take extra bases.
Hyde also said he tries to “calm him down a little bit” because Henderson is often frustrated when he gets out — a part of the game the fifth-year skipper said the youngster will soon learn to better handle.
“He just cares so much,” Hyde said. “You live and die with that and take that any day of the week.”
Baltimore Sun reporter Hayes Gardner contributed to this article.
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