If the Orioles are to string together some wins next month and advance a series or two in the playoffs, their bullpen probably is going to look a lot like the clinching victory Tuesday that helped put them there. If they aren’t, it might look a lot like Thursday.

Over three games in New York, the Orioles’ relief corps showed the full breadth of what it’s capable of: the all-hands-on-deck success story, the disappearance of a massive lead and the erasure of any comeback opportunity in turning a close deficit into a large one.

Just as the lineup is out of reasons it wasn’t at its best with its returning infielders in the last week, the returns of Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb, plus the news that Grayson Rodriguez wouldn’t be back for the playoffs, basically means this Orioles pitching staff is the one they’ll take into October.

Of all aspects of the team, the bullpen is the one that will enter the postseason with the most questions. The Orioles’ lineup, when they aren’t facing Gerrit Cole, seems imposing again. The rotation led by Corbin Burnes and Zach Eflin will give them a chance. What happens once they or any other starter leaves is going to be hard to predict.

All we really, truly know is that it’s not going to be super straightforward. Consider how manager Brandon Hyde helped the team clinch a playoff spot Tuesday. After a day off with his whole group fresh, he used five pitchers to record the 12 outs after Dean Kremer left the game, with the matchups dictating who was available and, on this occasion, playing out in the Orioles’ favor.

Tuesday was one of those nights when everything clicked. The relievers’ night began with Keegan Akin, so often this year the first man out of the bullpen, summoned for a left-on-left matchup with Juan Soto. Akin won that battle for a pop-up, then issued among the more unconvincing unintentional walks on record in missing four pitches low and away to right-handed Aaron Judge.

Lefty Austin Wells also popped out before Webb came in to face right-handed Giancarlo Stanton. Webb’s assignment was a short one; he struck out Stanton on five pitches to end the inning and didn’t come back out for the seventh.

Cionel Pérez had the ball the following inning in another favorable stretch for a lefty; neither Anthony Rizzo nor Alex Verdugo hit the ball hard but ended up on first and third as the lineup turned over. Hyde brought in Yennier Cano to face the right-handed Gleyber Torres and was fortunate his drive to right field was an automatic double that stopped Verdugo at third.

Similarly, the Orioles were fortunate Torres was caught in a rundown when Soto hit the fourth of the four straight changeups he saw to right field, which scored a run but ultimately ended the inning.

Cano stayed in the game to start the eighth and face Judge and ended up leaving after a hard lineout, giving way to Gregory Soto to face another pocket of lefties. That ultimately extended into the ninth inning, when Soto walked Rizzo and caused Hyde to bring in Seranthony Domínguez.

The final two outs proved simple, and the Orioles’ bullpen held on.

It did so without having to use Coulombe, who was their most reliable weapon before his elbow injury. Gregory Soto threw the most pitches of anyone Hyde used at 19, and Webb, Soto and Akin were all available to be used again Wednesday because of it.

Even so, with the game well in hand, Matt Bowman allowed four runs to create a save situation in the ninth and lead to a 9-7 final. Then, a day later, Burnes left after five breathtaking innings only for a series of disasters to come next. Cano, who hasn’t been the same since he missed a week with arm soreness early this month, combined with Pérez and Brian Baker for a six-run sixth inning that handed New York the game and the AL East.

The Orioles’ offense has a part in the fact that they don’t seem as adept at coming back from early deficits this year, but the fact that the small ones turn into large ones doesn’t help.

So, in three games, there it was: the unwavering, the unnerving and the undermining, all in a row. This isn’t a bullpen that’s settled in the sense that the same men will pitch the seventh, eighth and ninth when leads arrive. It would be a lot simpler if Félix Bautista was manning the ninth and the mixing and matching ended there. Heck, it was only a couple of months ago when Craig Kimbrel was reliably locking down the ninth.

Now they’re going to play the matchups with good-not-great pitchers on a nightly basis and hope each does his job. They’ll probably add someone like Albert Suárez to the long relief mix, which could fortify those middle innings, but there’s no DL Hall-type weapon waiting to contribute this October.

The only thing they have really going for them is the schedule. To the extent they have a top tier of trusted relievers, they’ll be able to go to them often in the first few series, considering if they advance past the wild card series there’s a bonus off day between the first two games of the division series.

Either way, it’s going to be a puzzle — and the final piece of that might not even be Domínguez in the ninth inning, considering he may be deployed for a high-leverage pocket of righties earlier.

These last few games — especially these in New York — serve as dress rehearsals for postseason-type bullpen management for the Orioles. What we’ve learned is that, at its best, it can work. A bullpen full of largely good pitchers, pitching in the best possible conditions, is liable to work out more often than not. There are no sure things, though. And that means, as diligent as the Orioles are to line things up the way they want to, there’s no way of knowing if the moment is going to prove too large for whomever Hyde calls upon.

He just has to hope like the rest of us.