(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
The Baltimore Orioles earned an emphatic 14-1 victory against the New York Yankees in the Bronx on Thursday.
The game was out of hand by the third inning after the O’s scored seven runs in that frame; and turned into a laugher when the fourth inning finished with Baltimore holding a 13-0 lead.
After that fourth inning, an Orioles rookie looked like he would be in for a historic night.
Gunnar Henderson was 4-for-4 with a couple of homers and five RBI at that point, and he was responsible for most of the damage inflicted against Yankees starter Luis Severino.
The league’s official Twitter account showed those stats and a video of one of his home runs.
Gunnar Henderson is 4-for-4 with 2 homers and 5 RBI.
It is the 4th inning. pic.twitter.com/m7Xmp52aNG
— MLB (@MLB) July 7, 2023
That wasn’t a short porch “cheapie”, no: that ball was hit with authority and everybody knew it was gone immediately after contact.
After a rather sluggish start (.659 OPS in April), he has improved to the point that he is now comfortably an above-average hitter (123 wRC+; league-average value is 100) and has 13 home runs, a .246/.339/.465 line, and an .804 OPS.
Henderson is cementing his place as one of the league’s best young hitters and is starting to justify the AL Rookie of the Year hype that surrounded him before the start of the 2023 campaign.
At the end of the day, Henderson went 4-for-7 with two homers, three runs, and five RBI.
He didn’t really do anything of note after the fourth inning, but Baltimore sure isn’t complaining: he did all he needed to do before that point.
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