Gunnar Henderson spoke with all the wisdom his 23 years allot him. This offensive slump? Even someone as young as Henderson knows baseball teams go through times such as these, when the hits aren’t coming — or aren’t coming at the right times — and the zeros on the scoreboard multiply.

The Orioles entered Friday without a run in their previous 24 innings, and a matchup against right-hander Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees loomed. They exited with a 4-1 loss after a ninth-inning benches-clearing incident, leaving Baltimore still in search of a turnaround.

It wasn’t for a lack of chances. Henderson, an MVP candidate who’s one of five Orioles headed to the All-Star Game, lined out to Juan Soto in right field with two outs and a runner on second. Baltimore stranded leadoff baserunners in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.

In July, one of the best offensive teams has turned into the worst. This month, entering Friday, the Orioles had hit .164 — the lowest average in the majors — with runners in scoring position. They finished 1-for-9 in Friday’s loss, as Ramón Urías’ triple off Cole in the second brought home Baltimore’s lone run.

A slump, for sure. But a panic-inducing metric? No, Henderson said Friday afternoon.

“It’s just baseball. It’s going to happen. Seems like every team goes through this at some point,” Henderson said. “It’s a weird game. You’ve just got to embrace its ups and downs.”

With a fourth straight loss, the Orioles are in the midst of one of those downs. But there have been few dips in recent years, ever since the likes of Henderson and Adley Rutschman emerged from prospects into stars.

Perhaps that’s why each losing streak feels magnified — the days of losing 19 straight games, which they did in 2021, are gone.

Putting too much stock into any small sample can be foolish, especially when July has consisted of 10 games out of 162. But the Orioles’ .159 average with runners in scoring position this month is a sharp drop-off from their .263 average through the end of June.

“We’ve been playing really good baseball this first half and just kind of want to see us end the half playing well,” said manager Brandon Hyde, who was ejected late for his role in a pushing match between the Yankees and Orioles following a hit batter. “We’ve run into a little bit of a skid right now. We’re kind of running through some tough times offensively, and hopefully we can take some better at-bats tomorrow.”

With it comes additional pressure on their pitching staff, although left-hander Cade Povich and the bullpen did enough to keep Baltimore in the game.

The last time Povich took the mound, the Oakland Athletics rocked him for eight runs. He managed three outs, with the Athletics knocking him out of the contest in the second inning, the shortest start of his professional career.

Hyde said Baltimore would learn just how well Povich can recover and turn the page in the first inning Friday, against an imposing Yankees lineup that begins with DJ LeMahieu, Soto and Aaron Judge.

Povich struck out LeMahieu. Then New York loaded the bases when Soto rocketed a 109.3 mph single and Judge and Gleyber Torres walked. Once more, Povich sprayed arm-side misses, just as he did against Oakland. But, unlike the breakdown that occurred last week, Povich escaped the bases-loaded jam with no runs against him, despite throwing 10 strikes on 21 pitches.

New York broke through in the second and third innings, however. And a two-base error from Anthony Santander didn’t help.

When Anthony Volpe singled to right field, Santander bungled the pick-up. The ball trickled by him, and Volpe wound up on third to lead off the second. He promptly scored on Jose Trevino’s double, and Trevino scored when former Orioles infielder Jahmai Jones punched a middle-middle cutter into center field.

And the next inning Judge watched his major-league-leading 33rd home run sail over the left field wall. Povich had gotten ahead in the count, 0-2, by looping in two curveballs. But rather than spiking the third curveball in an attempt to induce a whiff, Povich left the breaking ball in the heart of the plate. Judge didn’t miss.

“For only having a handful of starts under his belt, to be able to kind of navigate through the lineup the way we he did — you know, he made that bad pitch to Judge there 0-2, unfortunately,” Hyde said. “But, besides that, I thought he threw the ball really well.”

It is an example of the development still ahead of the rookie. When a pitcher misses — and he will; everyone does — it’s best to miss outside the zone. Povich’s miss in that instance gave New York a run back immediately after Baltimore had ended its 25-inning scoreless streak.

In all, Povich bounced back well from the dismal outing in Oakland. Without a middle-of-the-zone miss to Judge, the premier power hitter in the game, it could’ve been even better. And, without Santander’s error, perhaps the second inning would’ve developed differently.

“Just trying to keep the team in it,” Povich said. “However that looks, that’s my job as a pitcher, is to do what I can to keep our team in it, and sometimes it’s going to look amazing and sometimes it’s going to look a little different. It’s one job.”

As it is, this offense appears to require something more than solid from its pitching staff of late.

Urías broke the Orioles’ streak of 25 scoreless innings when he tripled in the second inning off Cole to plate Heston Kjerstad. It was Baltimore’s first hit with a runner in scoring position across its last 21 at-bats, and it momentarily brought life to a lineup that stumbled through a sweep against the Chicago Cubs.

But, after that, the zeros multiplied on the scoreboard once more.