Orioles star Gunnar Henderson provided a positive update on the status of his intercostal strain yesterday, telling reporters (including Roch Kubatko of MASN) that he’s “feeling good” as he works his way back to the field in hopes of being ready for Opening Day. Henderson first suffered the injury in late February, and after nearly three weeks of rehab the shortstop expressed some optimism about his situation.
“It’s getting there,” Henderson said, as relayed by Kubatko. “It’s a lot better than what it originally felt like.”
He went on to add that his “plan” is to be active and in the lineup for Opening Day against the Blue Jays on March 27, and hopefully get into some Spring Training games before then as well. While he wasn’t in either lineup for today’s set to split squad Grapefruit League games, Opening Day is still almost two weeks away which should offer the Orioles a bit of time to work with as they look to get Henderson up to speed in time for the start of the regular season.
Losing the shortstop for any amount of time would be devastating given that he was one of the top players in the entire sport last year. After impressing in a 32-game cup of coffee during the 2022 season, Henderson won the AL Rookie of the Year award in 2023 before making his first All-Star game last year and finishing fourth in a stacked AL MVP class behind Aaron Judge, Bobby Witt Jr. and Juan Soto. If Henderson were to miss time, the club could slide Jackson Holliday over to shortstop from second base, with a potential bench player like Livan Soto handling second or perhaps Jordan Westburg moving to the keystone to make room for Coby Mayo at the hot corner. Of course, for now the Orioles seem to be focused on preparing Henderson for the start of the season rather than potential alternatives.
While Henderson seemingly remains on track to break camp with the club, the same cannot be said for utility man Jorge Mateo. As noted by Kubatko, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters Friday that it’s “very doubtful” Mateo will be ready for Opening Day. The versatile hitter has spent the spring recovering from elbow surgery, and recently expressed optimism that he’d be able to make it back in time for Opening Day. That optimism isn’t entirely unfounded, as Mateo is making his spring debut today. With that being said, the final decision of Mateo’s readiness will come down to Hyde and GM Mike Elias, both of whom have now expressed doubt about Mateo’s odds of breaking camp with the club.
Back to more promising injury news, infielder Ramon Urias has been slowed in recent days by a sore hamstring but is not expected to miss significant time due to the issue. Kubatko writes that the 30-year-old went through a full slate of defensive work and took batting practice yesterday, while MLB.com’s Jake Rill notes that Urias told reporters this morning that his hamstring is feeling better and that there’s “no concern” about his ability to be ready for Opening Day. Urias is in neither lineup for today’s split squad games, but both he and Hyde expressed optimism that he would be back in the lineup for Baltimore in relatively short order.
When will Ramon Urias get his respect? Just looked and saw he’s been worth 9.1 rWAR over 1465 career PA. What a waiver claim.
WAR is the most pointless, garbage ‘stat’ ever created.
Just say you don’t understand it. You don’t have to pretend otherwise
Well that sucks for you!
@lowenstein
Everyday i see another abbreviation. War, rwar, fip, xfip, xera, woba. zztop.. ok last 1 is a rockband but could very well be a computer nerd statistic. And they are so passionate about it too, they will fight you tooth & nail til the death to prove that their new stat is better & smarter than anything else
So, basically you have no clue what it is, and you don’t like it and say it is a “nerd stat” because you know you aren’t smart enough to understand it. Obvious cope. Psychology 101
I agree Bing. Some can be useful, but they get these obscure metrics that are truly worthless. The funny part is someone will come up with a new metric and then apply it to past players as proof the metric works. They will be like look my new metric says Lou Gehrig was a good player compared to his peers. Wow really that’s amazing I didn’t know that before your metric.
Lots of logical fallacies here^
I always find it funny when someone says you are wrong but they can’t explain why
You didn’t say anything. First off, you have no clue what war is. Would bet anything you can’t define it and don’t know what goes into it. Second, Give me one stat that has a better predictive power on wins than war has..I’ll wait
Letitbe and chandler, at least we know for sure to ignore your opinion now. Thanks for that.
Urias is one of the most consistently underrated and overlooked guys in the sport, even amongst O’s fans. He’s not a star or anything, but all he has done since arriving in Baltimore is produce- 108 career OPS+, 9.1 rWAR, GG, etc. He’s a starting-quality backup and yet many O’s fans want him gone.
…Urias turned into Jordan Westberg after the All Star break last year. When he got injured, that’s when the offense went from sputering to cold.
Love me some Ramon! He’s been the glue through so much of the rebuild. Big appreciation from this fan!
Orioles had a much better future than the Red Sox around 2 years ago. Now, the Red Sox have pulled ahead. Orioles are highly overrated
We will see who is laughing at the end.
homer alert^
wannabe know-it-all alert ^
Pipe down chowdahead.
Having an opinion means I’m a boston fan? Shows your bias. Which partisan political pundit do you watch every day?
lol no
Laughable garbage.
That is your opinion and you are definitely entitled to it however teams like the Orioles do not win as many games as they have the past two seasons by being “overrated”. Now granted they have failed in the post season, but they are a very young team and our still growing in to their success. I give the Red Sox some credit for improving their team they have made some good moves. And while it looks good on paper the real test will be at the end of season.
Good news all around.
Looking forward to another great year of Orioles baseball!
86 wins and a wild card loss
I think we win 90+, but we’ll see.