Buck Showalter still thinks about the 2014 American League Championship Series and shakes his head. The spectacular catches, the broken-bat hits, the ground balls that just sneaked through Baltimore’s infield left the Orioles to suffer a sweep at the hands of the Kansas City Royals.

Baltimore never got back to that point. Showalter, the manager from 2011 to 2018, led the Orioles to the postseason three times. They won the American League East once. And then, in 2018, it all crashed down — the playoff window slammed shut in the form of a teardown at the trade deadline and a 115-loss season.

“There’s only one team at the end of the day,” Showalter said. “It’s cold, man.”

That sell-off and ensuing three seasons of losing baseball — including two campaigns with more than 100 losses — are why the Orioles are entering 2025 in the middle of another playoff window. From 2019-22, the Orioles drafted in the top five each year. Two of those seasons, they held the first overall pick, which then-new general manager Mike Elias used in 2019 to take catcher Adley Rutschman.

By 2022, Rutschman’s arrival in the major leagues seemed to be the catalyst of change, as the team recorded its first winning season in six years. A wave of top prospects including shortstop Gunnar Henderson, outfielder Colton Cowser, infielder Jordan Westburg and starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez soon followed.

The 2022 team? That was house money. The 2023 team? It won 101 games and took the league by storm. The 2024 team? Still good but beleaguered by injuries and slumping hitters. The 2025 team? It remains to be seen, but the expectations are certainly heightened.

“Winning when you’re expected to win is probably one of the hardest things to do in team sports,” Showalter said. “Let’s put it this way: They’re not sneaking up on anybody. They’re going to get everybody’s best shot. They’re not the little engine that could.”

Showalter knows from experience. In 2012, the Orioles were one of the best underdog stories in the league, giving the franchise its first winning record and postseason appearance since 1997. Two years later, they won 96 games and a division title.

But there are no guarantees, as Showalter is well aware. Over the course of the 2014 season, they endured the losses of All-Star catcher Matt Wieters (Tommy John surgery), phenom third baseman Manny Machado (knee surgery) and slugging first baseman Chris Davis (who served a 25-game suspension after testing positive for amphetamines associated with the drug Adderall).

The Orioles persevered and made quick work of the Detroit Tigers in the divisional round, sweeping the series in three games, but things started to turn in the ALCS, where the Orioles dropped four straight to the Royals.

“You realize then there’s a lot of things you can’t control,” Showalter said, thinking of those bounces and catches that went Kansas City’s way in 2014. “We’re supposed to try to control a lot of things, but sometimes the baseball gods just don’t let it happen.”

Will the baseball gods smile upon the Orioles this year, beginning with opening day on Thursday against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre?

They were not so kind in 2024, when slumps and a cavalcade of starting pitching injuries combined to batter Baltimore’s chances down the stretch. For the second straight season the Orioles arrived in the postseason, and for the second straight season the team was swept. Since 2014, Baltimore hasn’t won when it mattered in October.

That is a difficult reality to stomach. And, while the leaders from this iteration of the Orioles — from Rutschman and right-hander Zach Eflin to owner David Rubenstein — express their desire to win the World Series, there’s the matter of expectations.

At some point, either these Orioles will win when it matters most or the window will close on them as it did for Showalter’s group a decade earlier. The nature of MLB’s postseason means it’s practically a roll of the dice for the teams that make it. The experience this group has gained through two winless postseason stints will help. As will the insertion of veteran presences around them.

This offseason, the Orioles signed players with a postseason pedigree. One is right-hander Charlie Morton, a 41-year-old who has been part of three World Series teams (and is twice a champion).

“I think it’s easier to win in the regular season, and depending on how it is processed by the team, it can make it harder in the postseason,” Morton said.

“I don’t know how much external expectations can really impact a team,” he added. After all, the internal expectations are already high enough.

“Our goal is to eliminate any external noise, external expectations, and really just focus on what we want to do,” Rutschman said. “Our goal is to go as far as we can and win a World Series. That’s the ultimate goal. At the end of the day, it comes down to the guys in the clubhouse and us banding together and weathering the storm, because adversity is going to come at some point and I have a lot of faith in this group and what we can do.”

Rutschman and Morton have experienced the highest form of winning, although they did so at different levels. Rutschman won a College World Series while at Oregon State. Morton has championships with the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves.

The common denominator for both, however, is timing — when a team gets hot and whether it can stay hot.

The best example is from Morton’s time with Atlanta in 2021. The Braves entered August with a below-.500 record, yet they were only five games back of the National League East lead.

“When you have a losing record in August, I don’t think you’re necessarily thinking you’re going to the World Series,” Morton said. “But, at the same time, you get hot at the right time …”

The Braves stormed back to win the NL East. Then they stampeded through the postseason and beat the Astros in the World Series.

Does that mean it’s easier to win when it’s unexpected? Not necessarily. It more illustrates the timing aspect of a surge. Over a 162-game slate, there are few underdog stories. The season is too long for a hot streak to carry through spring, summer and fall. But in the confined nature of October? When there are best-of-seven series to win?

It’s anyone’s game. And even the best teams can stumble.

“Shoot, in ’22 and ’23, we were the best team in the division,” Morton said of the Braves, who boasted one of the best offenses of all time in 2023. “We just didn’t get it done in the playoffs. The momentum didn’t carry over.”

Part of the success in Atlanta, as well as in Baltimore under Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver, was that there was a standard that demanded excellence. When Morton came through the minor leagues, all the talk surrounded the Braves’ 14 straight division titles. That was the benchmark each season.

Even in spring training, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer remembers the level of play expected from Weaver. In 1970, after an early-spring exhibition game in Mexico City, Weaver let loose. Baltimore lost only five spring training games in 1969; the next year, it had already dropped three.

“Weaver has a fit,” Palmer said. “‘We’ve already lost 60 f------ percent of the games we lost last f------ spring.’ He’s like a jockey coming down the stretch at Pimlico. And we’ve played nine games in spring training. It was the expectation.”

That fall, the Orioles won the World Series. They did it through pitching and defense, Palmer said, and despite all the changes to the game in the half-century to follow, those are still hallmarks of October success.

“Good teams just know how to win,” Palmer said. “Weaver made a good point: ‘Good teams, they don’t win games; they just don’t lose them.’ What does that mean? Well, it means you pitch well. That means you played better defense.”

And it means their offense produced in the clutch. The 2023 Orioles, with a .287 batting average with runners in scoring position, were the best clutch-hitting team in the majors. That fell off in 2024, with a .251 average that left Baltimore at No. 17.

That, as much as what their bullpen and rotation can produce, will be a critical statistical category this season. Palmer remembers asking Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter how he produced at the level he did with runners in scoring position. Jeter holds a lifetime .310 average. With runners in scoring position, he hit .301.

“He goes, ‘Well, what changes?’” Palmer recalled. “Now, for him, nothing changed, because he was going to have the same approach.”

But it isn’t that way for everyone, and Palmer saw how the moment appeared to get to some of the younger Orioles players last year. Cowser, for instance, is a .209 hitter with runners in scoring position. Against the Royals last year, Hyde opted against pinch hitting for Cowser — Austin Slater, a right-handed batter, was available against the left-hander on the mound — and Cowser struck out with the bases loaded on a pitch that broke his hand.

Palmer still questions Hyde’s decision not to pinch hit in that spot, considering the preference all season to platoon batters. He also wonders how the Orioles will balance Cowser’s playing time this season.

For instance, in 2023, the Orioles allowed Henderson to grind through a difficult two months to begin the season — expectations weren’t high enough to force a player to produce immediately. This year, there’s less margin for error when the aspirations are greater.

“Are you going to give him a chance to prove he can play every day?” Palmer said of Cowser, although the principle applies to many other players, too. “Hopefully he will be. … What are they going to do this year? And when are they going to do it? Because I think the league is better, and that’s great. It’s great for baseball.”

Across the board, the American League East does appear better. The Boston Red Sox added right-hander Garrett Crochet and infielder Alex Bregman. The Toronto Blue Jays signed former Orioles slugger Anthony Santander. And the New York Yankees, despite losing Juan Soto to the Mets and right-hander Gerrit Cole to injury, signed left-hander Max Fried.

But the Orioles made their own moves to soften the loss of Santander and right-hander Corbin Burnes, even though there’s no replacing Burnes with one player. In came Morton, right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano and right-hander Kyle Gibson. Outfielder Tyler O’Neill joined, and the Orioles signed Gary Sánchez to raise the floor at backup catcher.

The players aren’t quiet about their thought process. They welcome the increased expectations, because that comes from winning in the past.

“The goal for every one of us is to win the World Series, you know?” Eflin said. “That’s the mindset going into every season. We have a collective energy and thought process of winning every single game. Beating people into the ground: That’s the kind of mentality this team takes.”

But nothing is guaranteed. So, when the Orioles begin their season at Rogers Centre on Thursday, the pressure starts immediately.

“The pennant race starts opening day,” Palmer said. “A game in April is just as important as one in September, and good teams know that.”