Bobby Witt Jr. stood a few steps up the third baseline as the Orioles’ staff and players were introduced, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Either you’re up for it or you’re not. He was.

So when the time came for him to make a difference, with a runner not much farther up that third baseline with two outs in the sixth, he delivered. Maikel Garcia trotted home on Witt’s sixth-inning single for the game’s only run.

“It’s pretty cool just to hear everyone booing you when you go out there and hearing the fans yelling at you, and then when you’re able to get the job done and win a game, it’s pretty special,” Witt said. “It feels good.”

Where in the Orioles’ process-driven striving for greatness and sustained success that has come to define this run of contention — which produced one playoff sweep a year ago and is now on the verge of another quick exit — is that extra level of fire, that edge that drives a player to win a moment so his team can win a game?

Which of this year’s Orioles are up for it? With this team, it feels like either everyone is or no one is. There’s little rhyme or reason as to which version will show up. They’re dangerously close to a second disappointing October that will go down in history as a no-show.

“The postseason usually is won with one big swing,” Orioles starter Corbin Burnes said, lamenting Witt’s game-winning hit. “Today, it was only one swing the entire game that meant anything.”

Who’s going to emerge as the Orioles’ provider of such moments? That’s all it takes in the playoffs sometimes. One big-time hit from one big-time player. The Orioles have a handful of the latter on their roster, many of whom are without a postseason signature moment.

Yes, they only have four games worth of evidence so far, but that’s kind of the point. If your best players don’t come through in the playoffs, you quickly run out of chances.

It doesn’t make the Orioles’ best hitters bad, or their offensive philosophy that produced a strong year overall flawed. It’s just that the stakes can’t get higher than this, and every missed opportunity has consequences.

There were enough opportunities for the Orioles, as stingy as Royals starter Cole Ragans was. Jordan Westburg had a blast to left field fall just short of the wall with Cedric Mullins on third base in the third inning, and when Ramón Urías doubled with one out and went to third on a Mullins single in the fifth, James McCann and Gunnar Henderson both struck out to leave them there.

Henderson worked a well-earned two-out walk in the eighth and Westburg singled to move him to second, but Anthony Santander grounded out meekly to end the threat. That was the 21st of the 22 balls the Orioles put in play Tuesday, only five of which were hit hard (measured over 95 mph).

That’s not a recipe for success at the plate where these Orioles are concerned.

This isn’t about whether the Orioles should try to do something different at the plate. Coming from me, that would be incredibly disingenuous. It’s a recipe to get them this far, that we know for sure, and in theory should lead to postseason success at a similar clip. If it works out and you hit the ball hard in droves, then you score runs, win, and play more.

The problem this time of year is you don’t get many opportunities for the probabilities to play out in your favor. Baseball is a sport that weeds out its pretenders over six months then decides playoff series in two, sometimes three days.

While that might not be as random as getting struck by lightning or winning the lottery, you need some big moments to overcome that kind of variance. It’s worth asking at this point: Who on this Orioles team is built to provide them? Henderson had six of Baltimore’s 24 hits in last year’s playoff sweep against Texas; only Santander, who had a meaningful home run in the first game of that series, had more than two hits among players still active for the Orioles. Mullins had two of their five hits Tuesday.

It might just be a one-game blip against a good pitcher. But if it turns into two straight postseasons of missed opportunities at the plate, the question will be if these Orioles — with five All-Stars in the lineup, a potential Rookie of the Year winner in Colton Cowser, and two former first-round picks on their bench — have the ability to command a moment as well as they do full seasons.

We know it’s not for lack of trying. Adley Rutschman astutely pointed out after the Orioles clinched a playoff spot that the game doesn’t always reward your best efforts, and that’s what happened here. The Orioles swung at and put in play a lot of good pitches Tuesday. They just didn’t hit them terribly hard.

You can build out the best practices and drills to build an offense that’s going to work, draft and sign the most productive hitters with the highest makeup that the amateur draft has to offer, acquire an absolute stud to pitch a playoff game for you — on paper, that’s the avenue to win playoff games, playoff series, and championships.

But it all comes down to a man holding a bat with a chance to make something happen, and the Orioles’ playoff runs in this era have been devoid of them to this point. A win-or-go-home game Wednesday that has the dueling possibilities of shedding this trait they’re carrying around or cementing it as the truth until proven otherwise isn’t the best circumstance to step into, but it’s the one the Orioles are facing.

No pressure.