Orioles fans can point to familiar culprit to explain Gunnar Henderson's slow start

Gunnar Henderson is off to a slow start this season. Through the Baltimore Orioles first two series, Henderson has just four hits, and he's struck out nine times. To add insult to injury, he's also leading the league in number of times caught stealing after getting picked off in the Orioles series finale against the Twins. (Editor's Note: Yes, we know that Henderson had a great game against the Pirates on Friday. This was written and scheduled before that happened, but it is still instructive)

Obviously, this isn't cause for any long-term concern, but the Orioles came into the season on the edge of the playoff picture, and if they miss the playoffs by a game or two, it's going to be something to think about, whether or not Henderson's participation in the World Baseball Classic cost the Orioles important games.

When Henderson announced that he would be playing in the WBC, it was exciting, but with fellow elite shortstop Bobby Witt Jr already signed up to play, there were immediate questions about how the playing time would be distributed. At his best, Henderson can go band-for-band with Witt at short, but Witt is the more consistently excellent defender and was coming off a much better season, so it wasn't necessarily insulting that Witt would get the majority of the playing time at short and Henderson would move to one of the other infield positions.

There were other infielders also already onboard the WBC train, but none in the class of Henderson, so most people assumed he would slide neatly over to third base. Alas, once the tournament started, it was clear that Team USA Manager Mark De Rosa preferred to play veteran third baseman Alex Bregman at third over Henderson.

Gunnar Henderson's WBC benching appears to have followed him into the season

Even as the tournament went on and Henderson was clearly outperforming Bregman, he remained in the role of reserve. Over the course of the tournament from March 5th to the 17th, Henderson made only 3 starts. That is very different from what the normal spring training ramp-up would look like. Henderson knew that playing the WBC would be different from his usual routine, but there is no way that he anticipated playing so little.

There are ways to get work in on days you don't start, so it's not like Henderson only swung a bat in his 15 WBC plate appearances but anyway you slice it he got less of a ramp up than any other superstar who left to play in the WBC and he is now understandably behind to eight ball to start the season for the Orioles.

This is not the first time the Orioles have experienced this. In 2023, two of the regular starters, Cedric Mullins and Anthony Santander, both played in the WBC. When they returned to the Orioles afterward, they were both behind. Each of them had an uncharacteristically low OPS in the .500s halfway through April before both turning it around and playing like their regular selves for the rest of the season.

This is just one of the effects of the tournament, especially if, like Mullins and Henderson, you don't play very much. By the end of the month, Henderson will get his numbers back up to familiar territory, and if the Orioles cruise to the playoffs this early season slump will fade out of memory.

However, if losing games to the Twins and Rangers early in the season, where Henderson goes 1-7 with runners on base, comes back to haunt the Orioles, then the WBC will loom disproportionately large.