Building up: How Legos have helped Orioles rookie Gunnar Henderson ‘decompress’ through early-season struggles

For Gunnar Henderson, “Star Wars” Legos aren’t only a way to compete with Orioles prospect Colton Cowser, though their 2023 race is set to begin soon. They’ve also helped Baltimore’s prized rookie put his mind at ease amid a relatively slow start to his first full major league season.

Hits have been hard to come by for Henderson, a 21-year-old infielder who began this year as baseball’s unanimous top prospect and a favorite to be American League Rookie of the Year. That’s why many nights, he’s found himself piecing together a Lego Imperial Star Destroyer.

“Everybody has their own way to decompress, and it’s just something that just kind of gets your mind off everything,” Henderson said. “You just go back home, build for a little bit, and then eventually you come out with something fully made. It’s definitely different, but I enjoy it.”

Modeling the triangular spaceship from the opening scene of the franchise’s first film, “A New Hope,” the nearly 5,000-piece set includes more than 20 bags of pieces, most filled with hundreds of Legos each; Henderson said working through one bag usually takes him three or four days, depending on how intensely he works and how tired he is when he gets home from a game. But taking that time has proven worthwhile to separate himself from what happens on the field, where he has at times expressed his frustrations with slammed helmets and bats.

He entered Wednesday’s game with the Kansas City Royals batting .184, the seventh-lowest average among players with at least 90 plate appearances while striking out in more than 30% of them. But thanks to an AL-best 20.6% walk rate, he’s managed a strong .361 on-base percentage, fueling a weighted runs created plus — an all-encompassing offensive metric — just above league average.

Last month, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde described Henderson’s start as a case of a “young player pressing,” adding that, when talking with Henderson, he tries to get him to think about “anything but baseball.” Building after games has helped Henderson do that.

“It just takes your mind off stuff, especially whenever you’re going through a little bit of a struggle,” Henderson said. “You can sit there and go back home and that’s all you think about because if you sit there — we’re all humans — that’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna think about, ‘Something’s not going right.’ I feel like that just gets me settled back down. It just gets me ready for the next day.”

He’s comforted knowing he endured a similar stretch at the start of last season, the one that propelled him to the majors and the top of prospect lists. Last April with Double-A Bowie, he hit .250 with a .450 slugging percentage, both of which proved to be his lowest marks for any month in which he played more than five games. But he counteracted those figures by walking more than he struck out, posting a .435 on-base percentage.

It was during that early stretch with Bowie that he learned the values the Legos could have, helping him focus on the positive aspects of his performance. He’s tried to carry the same approach throughout the start of this season.

“You actually have an honest reflection,” Henderson said. “You can kind of look back and say, ‘Yeah, I’m getting walks. I’m not hitting it the way I want to, but I’m getting one thing accomplished, and being able to have success in one way, it leads to the other.’

“It’s just at a different level. Yeah, it’s weighted a little bit different here, but still honestly on the same path. Maybe not hitting as early as I was last year, but still taking my walks and getting on base and trying to help the guys out behind me.”

During spring training that year, he was walking around Target with his girlfriend, Katherine Lee Bishop, when they passed through the Lego section. One set — the helmet of a Dark Trooper from the Disney+ “Star Wars” show “The Mandalorian” — caught his eye. He figured it would be a good way to pass time after morning workouts.

The 693-piece build sparked a hobby. By midseason, he and Cowser, a fellow top Orioles prospect and “Star Wars” fanatic, were in a build-off, a race to see who could first put together a Millennium Falcon set with more than 7,500 pieces. Cowser was faster, completing his metaphorical Kessel Run in fewer parsecs by finishing off Han Solo’s iconic ship in September as Henderson was ending the season with the Orioles.

“Every time I would get a few bags done, I’d be like, ‘All right, I’m about to beat you now,’” Henderson said. “Of course, it ended up working out in his favor towards the end.”

The Star Destroyer set Henderson is working on now is discontinued, meaning it would have been tough for Cowser to get his hands on one for their rematch. Instead, they’ll go head-to-head to build the Razor Crest, bounty hunter Din Djarin’s ship from the first two seasons of “The Mandalorian.” They planned to each buy the set Thursday, or Star Wars Day, with “May the Fourth” being a play on the franchise’s popular “May the Force be with you” phrase.

Henderson said the Falcon has been his favorite build so far, with the Star Destroyer a possible contender once it’s complete. The almost 7,000-piece set of the AT-AT, another piece of Imperial weaponry first seen in “The Empire Strikes Back,” remains on his wish list. His favorite “Star Wars” movie is probably “Revenge of the Sith,” the 2005 climax of the prequel trilogy that sees Anakin Skywalker complete his fall to the dark side and become Darth Vader. In an MLB social media video this spring, Henderson offered Skywalker actor Hayden Christensen as one of his celebrity lookalikes, and ahead of Triple-A Norfolk’s “Star Wars” Night last summer, the Tides’ Twitter account made the same comparison.

In the franchise, Skywalker was believed to be the “Chosen One.” Of course, Henderson, top prospect status aside, doesn’t view himself that way nor does he need to, with a strong lineup around him and his on-base ability, base running and defense — which has improved after some early shakiness — enough for him to make an impact as his bat returns to form.

Skywalker was supposed to bring balance to the Force. Henderson hopes his game will balance out soon.

“It’s obviously not the way I want to be hitting right now, but it’s just the way the ball’s rolling,” Henderson said. “I know it’s gonna come around here soon. When it does, then I’ll be ready to go.”

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