When Gunnar Henderson strode to the plate for High-A Aberdeen last season, the situations grew larger in his head than they were in reality. It was a byproduct of his age, in part. Then a 19-year-old and a self-described “ultra-competitor,” he wanted to succeed so badly.
But all the focus on success actually became a hindrance, as he put more pressure on himself than any opposing pitcher would.
“I really want this hit right now,” Henderson would think.
It was that mindset that challenged the 2019 second-round draft pick’s adaptation to High-A. He hit .209 in his first 42 games in Aberdeen, with 55 strikeouts to 27 walks. With each missed opportunity, the frustration mounted, as he wondered why he wasn’t matching the .312 batting average he posted with Low-A Delmarva to begin the year.
But a conversation with Kathryn Rowe, the Orioles’ mental skills coordinator, helped change that.
“She just said, ‘Get back to what got you here,’” Henderson recalled. “It was as simple as that.”
Over the last half of his season in Aberdeen, Henderson’s OPS rose to .898. His strikeout rate dipped and he clubbed more home runs (five) in his final 23 games than he managed in his first 42 (four). It was a springboard, one that launched him to Double-A Bowie to end 2021 and leaves him there to begin 2022, as well.
But Henderson won’t be with the Baysox long — not with the way he’s hitting. To begin this season, Henderson has shown off more than his power, displaying an ability to get on base at a rapid clip. It’s still Double-A, with a promotion to the Orioles in the distant future, but Henderson’s ability to follow Rowe’s advice — doing what got him here — will take him much further.
“You just go out there and do what you can do,” Henderson said. “Eventually, you get your swing off enough times, it’ll fall. Last year I felt was like the biggest thing for me going into this year. It really helped me, and I feel like it’s paying off.”
It’s paying off in a major way, with another three-hit night for Bowie on Wednesday bringing his batting average to .310. His OPS rose to 1.013, among the best in the Orioles’ system. Henderson has worked 40 walks in 44 games, and his .450 on-base percentage entering Wednesday stood as the 11th highest in minor league baseball. His 1.29 walk-to-strikeout ratio was the seventh-best mark nationally.
Some of the success comes from the minute swing adjustment Henderson began to make in spring training and has continued to hone early this season. Henderson used to have a tendency to pull the handle of his bat in the zone, allowing him to crush low and inside pitches.
The downside of that swing path, however, was the difficulty of reaching high and outside pitches. So Orioles hitting coach Ryan Fuller said Henderson has flattened his bat path more, which allows him to make contact with more pitches.
“He got a ton of exposure to that,” Fuller said. “Like all things that matter, you have to have patience and it takes time, and we’re seeing now that that bat path has solutions for high-and-away, low-and-in, middle-middle. He’s becoming more of a complete hitter that we like to call ‘matchup proof.’”
For many minor leaguers, the cancellation of the 2020 season because of the coronavirus was a major detriment. The left-handed hitting shortstop left spring training, returned home and worked on his golf game.
But before long, a call came to invite him to the Orioles’ alternate training site in Bowie, and as a teenager, he began to receive steady at-bats against Triple-A and major league pitching.
“What other 18-year-old gets to play against major league players for an entire summer, unless you’re here in The Show?” said Fuller, who worked closely with Henderson at the alternate site. “For him to have a full summer against major league caliber arms coming up and down was enormous.”
Henderson credits that time at the alternate site with helping “my career in a huge way, to be able to come here and face these guys.”
It was an early lesson in how to deal with failure. At 18, the at-bats against players sometimes a decade older didn’t go as planned. But as he learned in Aberdeen last season, spending time worried about the last result — or pressing for the next one — wasn’t useful.
In the offseason, Henderson spends time hitting against a randomized pitching machine, which throws him a variety of pitches to simulate a game experience. And now that he’s more of a “matchup proof hitter,” he feels ready for a promotion, even though the 20-year-old emphasized those decisions are beyond him.
It’s similar to what he learned at the plate. If he pressed, hoping for a result, it likely wouldn’t come. With a more relaxed approach, the hits are finding him — in bunches.
“He looks the part,” Fuller said. “He looks like a major league caliber shortstop, which we think down the road he’s going to be.”
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