{"id":65699,"date":"2025-05-30T07:21:17","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T07:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/65699\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T07:21:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T07:21:17","slug":"definitely-a-learning-experience-orioles-gunnar-henderson-addresses-early-season-struggles-as-team-mired-in-last-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/65699\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Definitely a learning experience\u2019: Orioles\u2019 Gunnar Henderson addresses early-season struggles as team mired in last place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a disastrous season for Gunnar Henderson\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/tag\/baltimore-orioles\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Baltimore Orioles;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Baltimore Orioles<\/a>. The O\u2019s are 19-36, dead last in the American League East, 16 games back of the first-place <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsnaut.com\/tag\/new-york-yankees\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New York Yankees;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New York Yankees<\/a>, and recently fired manager Brandon Hyde.<\/p>\n<p>With Baltimore mired in the basement, Henderson, who won the AL Rookie of the Year award in 2023 and was an All-Star for the first time in 2024, is still trying to find his footing after starting the season on the injured list with an intercostal strain.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Through 48 games, Henderson is hitting .254\/.318\/.435 with seven home runs and a 118 OPS+. Last year, he had 37 home runs \u2014 setting a franchise record for most home runs in a season by a shortstop \u2014 an .893 OPS and 158 OPS+.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a learning experience, because I\u2019ve never had something quite like this,\u201d Henderson told <a href=\"https:\/\/casinobeats.com\/2025\/05\/23\/gunnar-henderson-interview-orioles\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:CasinoBeats.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">CasinoBeats.com<\/a> about his early-season struggles. \u201cI know it\u2019ll ultimately help down the road. Hopefully (I\u2019ll) get this thing turned around and have a great rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the team\u2019s struggles in the first two months, Henderson says their focus is making the playoffs for a third consecutive year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou definitely have to find ways to do that,\u201d Henderson said about staying motivated during a long season. \u201cEspecially on some of the day games on the back half of the season, it gets to be a grind at that time, but that\u2019s when you enjoy being around the guys that you have in the clubhouse. They make life a lot easier whenever you\u2019re enjoying being around them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Henderson added that the \u201clongevity\u201d of the season is the biggest hurdle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing is being able to take care of your body, to be ready to go on each and every day. I feel like that\u2019s the best ability is availability. I know that\u2019s said a lot, but it rings true, especially in a 162-game season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It would be a massive undertaking for the Orioles to get back into the postseason hunt, so much so that they will most likely be sellers at the trade deadline. For Henderson this year, it\u2019s about proving that he\u2019s still one of the top shortstops in the game.<\/p>\n<p>Related Headlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a disastrous season for Gunnar Henderson\u2019s Baltimore Orioles. The O\u2019s are 19-36, dead last in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2374],"tags":[1820,143,47,2538,5,916,4,17772,62,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-65699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-orioles","8":"tag-american-league-east","9":"tag-baltimore","10":"tag-baltimore-orioles","11":"tag-baltimoreorioles","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-gunnar-henderson","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-most-home-runs-in-a-season","16":"tag-new-york-yankees","17":"tag-orioles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114595580162206624","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}