KANSAS CITY — After the Royals picked Gunnar Henderson off first base twice in Monday’s marathon 12-inning Orioles win, the shortstop said he’s first studying the buildup to those moments and then will figure out how to prevent them moving forward.

In the first and ninth innings, Henderson walked. As he built his primary lead off first base, the Royals pitchers snapped pickoff throws to first base before the first pitch of the next plate appearance. They were both close plays, but Henderson was called out each time.

Given the similarity in how right-hander Seth Lugo and right-hander Lucas Erceg attacked Henderson, it appeared as though they saw an opening in how Henderson builds a lead. “It was almost like he [Lugo] was waiting for Gunnar to take that little hop, and when he did the hop, he just snapped it over,” manager Craig Albernaz said after the win.

On Tuesday, Henderson said he didn’t know if there was an exact scouting report on how he builds his lead off first. He’s certainly more aware of it, though.

“If they were looking for it, they perfectly timed it up, and if they weren’t looking for it, then might need to buy a lottery ticket because it’s perfectly timed up both times,” Henderson said. “I didn’t really notice it, but I guess I’ve been doing it enough to where they saw it, and definitely will be making a change of that.”

In the immediate aftermath of those moments, Albernaz told Henderson that “he reached his pickoff quota for the year in one game, so let’s make an adjustment, please, and not get picked off.”

Albernaz said there are constantly teaching moments in this game, even for a franchise player.

“We talk openly where, if we make mistakes, call them out,” Albernaz said. “We can’t miss a teaching moment. This game is so hard, where this game is built on failure, and you have to deal with the failure and learn, and the biggest thing for us is we have to learn from our mistakes faster than other teams.”

The significance of those two outs on the bases isn’t lost on Henderson.

After Henderson was picked off in the first inning, outfielder Taylor Ward hit a double to deep center field.

“That’d be a run,” Henderson said.

And in the ninth, two more walks after Henderson was picked off led to Samuel Basallo extending the game to extra-innings with a two-out RBI single.

“Thankfully, Sammy picked me up big-time and we scored the run,” Henderson said. But had Henderson been on base, “that also would have been the go-ahead run,” he added.

“They say hindsight is 20-20, so you never know, a lot of different things could happen,” Henderson said, “but I just like to view it as we could have put up a lot more runs early. And yeah, that one was definitely on me.”

The way the Orioles came back to win the game in extra innings helped cover for the two baserunning gaffes. If pitchers are willing to test Henderson as he begins his lead off first base, though, a change may be required.

First base coach Jason Bourgeois is the key member of Baltimore’s running game strategy. He even brought a television onto the field this month to show his Orioles baserunners a video of the pitchers they would face that night so they could study their pickoff attempts while actively taking a lead.

Henderson and Bourgeois, surely, will talk.

“Being aware of it,” Henderson said, “then you know how to fix it.”