BALTIMORE - The Orioles keep waiting for Gunnar Henderson to snap out of it, and Tuesday night offered a perfect stage for the turnaround that never came.
With Baltimore suddenly in position to seize control in the seventh inning, Adley Rutschman lined a two-run single and Seiya Suzuki’s throw to the plate sailed wide, putting the tying runs in scoring position with two outs. Henderson stepped in against Cubs right-hander and former teammate Jacob Webb with a chance to change the game in one swing.
He never got the chance to do damage. Henderson struck out on three pitches, and Baltimore didn’t get another runner on base in a 5-2 loss that left the club eight games under .500 and 4 1/2 games out of the final wild-card spot in the mediocre American League.
“Any player that’s in that spot, you want them to come through. You want it for them, and you want it for us,” manager Craig Albernaz said.
“When Gunnar Henderson is at the plate, I think any pitcher is going to heighten a little bit [with] a little more focus. That’s a testament to him and how good of a player he is.
Tonight, he came up short.”
That line could apply to much of Henderson’s season. The Orioles have plenty of issues, but none looms larger than the 25-year-old shortstop’s collapse relative to expectations.
This was supposed to be the rebound year after an underwhelming 2025 affected by physical issues. Instead, Henderson has looked far more ordinary than the player who finished fourth in AL MVP voting at age 23.
By July, this is no longer a slow start. It’s a bad season.
If Henderson were even close to last year’s .274/.349/.438 slash line, Baltimore would be in a far better place. Instead, his .699 on-base plus slugging percentage in 417 plate appearances has been only around league average. The 16 home runs help the surface numbers, but more than half of them came in late March and April, when he was also striking out 33.6% of the time.
There have been signs of adjustment. Henderson has trimmed his strikeouts and improved his walk rate since the season began, but the tradeoff has been less thump.
Since May 1, he has a .363 slugging percentage. His Statcast numbers have also fallen sharply from where they were a couple of years ago, making it harder to chalk this up to bad luck alone.
And it’s not just the bat. After swiping a career-high 30 bases last year, Henderson has only seven steals in 91 games and has been picked off five times, an ugly number for a player of his caliber. His defense at shortstop has been uneven, with the miscues looking more like lapses in concentration than isolated mistakes.
Baltimore is clearly trying to handle the situation carefully. Tuesday was the first time all season Henderson didn’t hit first or second; he batted third instead. Albernaz also sidestepped multiple questions about Henderson being picked off again in Cincinnati last weekend, a noticeable contrast from his comments after Henderson was picked off twice in one game in Kansas City in April.
The organization doesn’t appear eager to make this about punishment or embarrassment. Henderson knows the season has fallen short of what anyone expected, and there’s a human element to where he hits in the order. Still, the Orioles need a lot more from him, fast, if they’re going to think about buying at the trade deadline, much less make a real push toward the postseason.
The pitching has done its part. Since May 22, Baltimore’s rotation ERA ranks sixth in the majors at 3.69, and the bullpen ERA is fourth at 3.52. The offense, though, has stayed stuck in the mud, and Henderson’s .228/.323/.389 line over that stretch has been a big reason why the Orioles haven’t climbed any closer to .500.
It’s a jarring place for a player who once looked like the centerpiece of the next great Orioles team. His first half in 2024 was never a fair standard to expect every year, but he has been better than this over multiple seasons.
Four months ago, he was shining on a global stage in the World Baseball Classic. That feels like a different era now.
For Baltimore, the path back starts with Henderson finding himself again. Right now, the clock is getting louder.
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