WASHINGTON – The number of injuries for the Orioles is reaching the point where the games seem almost secondary. The team lines up for the anthem, as it did last night at Nationals Park, but most of the talk is about Jordan Westburg’s season-ending elbow surgery and how the roster could undergo further changes to compensate.

Stories are written in haste as the countdown quickens to first pitch. The batting order almost was an afterthought.

Westburg was expected to undergo a ligament-reconstructive procedure in Los Angeles, so the outcome didn’t seem as much newsy as it did confirmation. We had an exact date, with no more talk about platelet-rich plasma injections or shutdowns. He isn’t going to play in 2026 – at third base or as the designated hitter.

“I texted him earlier,” said Gunnar Henderson. “I hate it for him. Hate it for him, but I know that he’s going to come back stronger than ever. And yeah, I love playing the field with him, but it’s just … it sucks, because I know everything in him wants to be out here.

“So yeah, my thoughts and prayers are with him, but hopefully we can get him back out here soon.”

Outfielder Dylan Beavers is the 19th different player on the IL, and he’s the 13th to currently occupy it.

The Orioles are reviewing if there’s anything different that they could be doing, but they also must chalk up much of it to lousy breaks.

“Obviously, it’s been an increasing, intensifying topic as these continue to happen, and this is really like the third year of it,” said president of baseball operations Mike Elias. “I think as we’re looking at this and trying to be careful about it, we have to separate a guy breaking his foot running around the bases or running into a wall versus any persistent soft tissue themes we’re getting across the majors and minors. And so we are doing that work behind the scenes, and it’s a big separator in baseball teams’ success these days.

“All I can say is that we are looking at it with as much intensity as we can right now while we undergo this.”

Elias didn’t want to “announce a verdict” when asked by a reporter whether he attributes this health issue to randomness or if something can be done about it.

“Look, there’s always ways to get better in every aspect of running a baseball organization, so I’m sure there’s stuff that we can be doing to improve right now and in the near future,” he said. “But we had a guy get a foot infection, and people in the IL with the flu, and you know, just so much of it is stuff just way beyond anyone’s control that we’ve got to be careful about separating that out.

“But can we get better in this area and every area? Absolutely. And we’re working to do that.”

*Henderson went 2-for-5 last night with a 111.9 mph double off the right field fence, a strikeout that stranded two runners in scoring position in the seventh and an RBI single with two outs in the ninth. His average climbed above .200 again to .202 with a .655 OPS to go with his nine home runs.

“First two at-bats, I felt great,” he said. “And then next at-bat, obviously I hit the ball hard. And then fourth at-bat, I was obviously not pleased with myself because I got back to kind of what I was doing earlier. And then in my last at-bat, I learned from it and I was able to get the job done there. So yeah, it’s just a game of learning. But yeah, obviously I would have loved to come through in the at-bat before. But just got to put up with it and do it in the next one.”

Elias believes that Henderson will get hot, simply based on the shortstop’s productive past.

“I think when it comes to a guy with his track record that he’s had, first of all, I think he deserves a little bit of time and benefit of the doubt with a slow start, just given the length of his track record,” Elias said. “And also with a guy like that, I think these are questions better directed at him or coaches, but from what I’m seeing, it’s just swing decision stuff, it’s approach stuff. It’s trying to do too much, maybe getting out of his best approach, and it’s the push and pull of being in the big leagues and people adjusting to you and trying new things, and you trying back.

“I think he will get going and his track record suggests that something like this is something that we should expect for him to work his way out of, but it’s not just a matter of time with all these guys, it’s a matter of work, and he’s definitely putting in that work.”

Some mechanical tweaks could do the trick. Nothing major.

“You’re not gonna overhaul a Gunnar Henderson. There’s nothing like that,” Elias said.

“I just think he’s out of his optimum approach right now, chasing at pitches that he shouldn’t, offering a little earlier at balls that he shouldn’t, but there’s nothing dooming going on. In terms of stuff that we want to see improve over the course of the season, that’s something that I’m really comfortable betting on is Gunnar Henderson’s numbers looking really good by the end of the year. So he’s gonna get going here.”

*The Orioles didn’t score until one out in the ninth inning and twice loaded the bases in a 3-2 loss. Henderson talked about the good at-bats throughout the game. How do they turn into a productive?

“Yeah, I mean, it’s just baseball,” he said. “You see offenses that go through spells like that. All you can do is take good at-bats and get good swings and I feel like that’s what we did today.

“We hit the ball hard, obviously, and there’s a lot of guys that hit it hard and it just didn’t find a hole. You can’t really control what the outcome is. All you can do is put a good swing on the ball, and that’s why baseball is the hardest game. You can do every single thing right to get the ball at a good launch, hard exit velo and it could be right to somebody. It’s just name of the game. But the past near-about week for us has been great. We’ve had a lot of good at-bats together, a lot of great pitchers that we faced and it’s just a matter of, they won’t stay that way for long.”

It can’t be easy to keep focusing on the process, as the Orioles love to say, and not become consumed by the results.

“No, it’s not,” Henderson said with a grin. “I first-hand can tell you that. It’s been super frustrating, I know for at least me, for a long time. But yeah, it’s something that’s a lot easier said than done, but in the game of baseball, like I’ve been saying, it’s super hard to (not) focus on the results, because with this offense, we put good at-bats together and obviously we didn’t get the results we wanted. So if we sat there and focused on the results, then we’d get pressed more and then those good at-bats turn into bad at-bats and then you don’t really give yourself a chance, especially like in the ninth today.

“We just strung together good at-bats and I feel like that’s just the name of the game is just going out there and doing what you can to put a good at-bat together, get a good swing off and get your A swing off as many times as you can, and you’ll get the job done more times than not.”

*Coby Mayo made his 27th start at third base and reached twice on a 116.5 mph single and hit-by-pitch. He also charged a couple of balls and got the outs. Clean pickups and accurate throws with the proper arm slot.

Elias talked yesterday about Mayo being thrust back at third because of Westburg’s injury, a familiar position for him but also a tough spot after he moved across the diamond.

“I’ve talked about this a lot and my view hasn’t changed. I think he can play third base,” Elias said.

“I think when you’re a 6 foot 5 guy built like he is, it’s easier to play first. And so, he’s a little better at it just because of the nature of his body type. But he’s played his whole minor league career at third. I think his high school career was more at shortstop and some third base. So he’s a good infielder, particularly for his size. Doing it at the major league level is tough and I wish maybe he had a little more warning over the winter that this was gonna be assignment No. 1. We just had no indication that Jordan was gonna be out. But Coby’s been really ardent about working on this and it hasn’t been 100 percent smooth ride, but it wasn’t expected to be and he’s doing great. “He’s working really hard every day and I think he’s getting really comfortable with the bat and the glove, and he’s helping the team. He’s gonna be out there a lot and we need him.”