The broad strokes of his recommendations were simple: Don’t try to hit the ball too hard. Pull it. The usual. But he was asked the question so often that he started to offer some variety, just, as he said, to keep things interesting.

“Yup, yup,” he said when one reporter asked if he had counseled Henderson. “Hit the ball pull side, in he air, really hard.”

“It’s not trying to do too much,” Rutschman explained when asked again. “The dude is extremely strong. He doesn’t have to hit the ball 120 miles per hour. A nice casual 115 will do.”

The gist, of course, was obvious: Henderson, the 23-year-old shortstop with 28 home runs at the all-star break probably did not need much advice at all. He hits the ball harder, more often, than all but seven players in the sport with an average exit velocity of 93.8 miles per hour. Of the seven players who average higher, four (Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) have won Home Run Derbies.

But Rutschman’s polite analysis did include another point: Henderson, he explained, likes to hit line drives. He might need to try to add some launch angle for the derby. Rutschman was right about that: Henderson’s 9.1-degree average launch angle is 211th in baseball, lowest in the eight-person derby field.

Ultimately, Henderson could not alter that angle enough to push into the semifinals of Monday night’s event, hitting 11 first-round homers and therefore failing to advance. Funnily enough, it was the man with the second-lowest launch angle — a man who might not be one of the top three power hitters on his own team, realistically — who took the title: Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández outlasted local Texas kid and Kansas City Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. to win.

Perhaps it is for the best that Henderson struggled to adjust: at times in recent summers, players who participate in the Home Run Derby later suggest that the focus on high flyballs required messed with their swings. Others (Soto in 2022 comes to mind) say the process ignites them heading into the second half. For Henderson, whose 6.1 FanGraphs wins above replacement is second only to Judge at the all-star break, it would be hard to burn much brighter.

Afterward, Henderson did not seem too upset by his failure to advance. He admitted, with a few shakes of his head, that he had underestimated exactly how physically taxing the derby could be.

“My legs were shot,” he said.

In some ways, Henderson’s experience served as a reminder of just how new to the national spotlight last year’s American League Rookie of the Year still is: During interviews before the game, for example, a reporter asked Henderson how much he had thought about the $1 million he could earn if he won, since it was more than his annual pre-arbitration salary. For many stars producing like he is, it was not enough to entice them to participate.

In other ways, the evening helped Henderson to introduce himself on that stage: After ESPN’s Buster Olney interviewed him on the television broadcast, Eduardo Perez pulled him over asked Henderson to do a Scooby Doo impression that had gone viral earlier this year.

“All right,” he said, without hesitation, stepping onto their set. He delivered a perfect “Ruh Roh Shaggy” and walked happily into the dugout.

It is entirely possible that Henderson, who competed with a Scooby Doo-themed bat, will be on this stage this big again some time soon. It is also possible, with these Orioles, that he will be the one advising some other power-hitting teammate in his shoes next year, like Rutschman did for him. Henderson is one of six Orioles named to this year’s All-Star Game, along with American League starting pitcher Corbin Burnes, starting catcher Rutschman, outfielder Anthony Santander and infielder Jordan Westburg.

For years, the Orioles were an afterthought on stages like these. One by one, slowly but surely, they are watching each other learn to seize them.