WASHINGTON -- The smile on Gunnar Henderson’s face had crept in before he touched home plate. He knew what he was doing. Upon contact, he was breaking out of the box, a scorcher off his bat out of the reach of Nationals third baseman Ildemaro Vargas, down the left-field line toward utility player César Hernández. His blinding speed might have allowed him to reach third regardless of what unfolded. Then Hernández bobbled the ball, and Henderson trotted home with ease.
It wasn’t all that long ago that he was hitting home runs in Little League.
“Yeah, it was just a bunch of smiles and laughs in there, because that was the first Little League home run that I've had in a long time,” Henderson said. “It was a triple, but I still count it. It was pretty fun.”
The moment from the 21-year-old -- a Little League home run from the youngest player in the Majors -- was bigger for what it propelled: a 6-2 win over the Nationals that not only secured bragging rights in the Beltway Series, but one that helped the O’s gain a game in the postseason hunt, now four back of the Rays for the third and final AL Wild Card spot, albeit conceding the tiebreaker to Tampa Bay.
Baltimore now takes off for another one of its biggest series of the year, en route to Toronto to open a three-game set Friday against a Blue Jays team the Orioles are chasing in the standings, kicking off 20 consecutive games to close out the season without an off-day.
The youth they possess might be energizing that push.
Just look to Henderson, whose two-hit, four-RBI day -- the Little League home run ruled a triple along with an insurance double he added an inning later and an RBI groundout in the second -- gave him 16 hits through his first 14 big league games, seven of which have gone for extra bases. The No. 2 prospect in baseball is hitting .320 to open his big league ledger with an .890 OPS in tow.
“You expect young players to go through their struggles early, and he's been swinging a bat really well,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “ … He runs well, he's playing really good defense and he's taking great at-bats for us.”
Henderson is fitting in comfortably -- and he’s found a helmet that fits.
"I'm extremely impressed with him,” said starter Tyler Wells, who pitched four innings in his second start off the injured list. “He's a great kid. He's always got a smile on his face. I think he plays the game hard, he plays the game the right way, and I think his level-headedness is really starting to come to show.”
And then look to Henderson’s speed, possibly the most unexpected aspect of his game in being able to use his 6-foot-2 frame to its fullest. Henderson’s 11.12 seconds from home to third base was the third-fastest tracked home-to-third time in MLB this season, thanks in part to his sprint speed of 28.7 feet per second sitting comfortably above the MLB average of 27.
The second-fastest? That would be teammate Jorge Mateo, who accomplished a dash to third faster Sept. 6. (And for good measure, Mateo followed up Henderson’s Little Leaguer with one that left the yard. He also didn’t lose his helmet, but he did spike his bat when trotting up the first-base line.)
“To watch him run, for a guy that physical, that size, it's pretty fun,” Hyde said.
And then combine that all with what Henderson did in the two-game series. Adding an RBI double an inning later -- a ball he laced just to right-center just feet from going for a traditional home run -- he compiled the first four-RBI game of his young career. Of the seven balls he put in play in the two-game series in D.C., six had an exit velocity of over 100 mph, including three of his four Wednesday.
The ball he sent down the left-field line for a journey in the seventh inning, just after the Orioles had finished toiling against Nationals starter Patrick Corbin, was smacked at 102.0 mph. It goes into the box score as Henderson’s first career triple, but it will be remembered far differently.
“I was just trying to do the job,” Henderson said. “Luckily enough, I was able to do a little bit more.”