TAMPA, Fla. — When Colton Cowser was sidelined for the first two months of the season — plus a few extra days after he slammed into the wall at Camden Yards last week — the gaping hole he left in the outfield was blatantly clear.

As other outfield injuries piled up, and infielders Jorge Mateo and Ryan O’Hearn had to play in their spots, Cowser’s services were duly missed.

But perhaps his offensive skills were just as crucial to this team as his defense. Because now, in his third week back, Cowser’s bat is heating up. And on Thursday, with the Orioles in desperate need of an easy win after Wednesday’s catastrophic collapse, Cowser pulled through, homering for the third night in a row as the Orioles beat the Rays 4-1.

“He’s been great. We’ve missed him, a lot,” interim manager Tony Mansolino said. “This is a multifaceted player that can affect the game in a lot of ways and one of those ways is hitting the ball over the fence, and we’ve seen it the last few nights.”

Baltimore is leaving Tampa with a series split and 10 games under .500 as it heads to New York to face the American League East-leading Yankees.

It wasn’t just the fact that Cowser hit another missile; it was the timing. The Orioles were tied with the Rays 1-1 but were wasting opportunities, especially in the fifth when they left Cowser on second after his leadoff double and Cedric Mullins on first.

So in the sixth, with starter Charlie Morton’s pitch count rising and the bullpen taxed after the night prior, the Orioles needed a momentum switch.

Enter Cowser, again.

With Gunnar Henderson on second and Rámon Laureano on first, Cowser sent the ball over the right-center-field fence to give the Orioles the lead. Cowser has an OPS of .914 since returning from the injured list.

“I think that the big thing was, coming off the IL, I’m feeling pretty good, and then, you know, and then getting banged up a little bit in the wall, you know, kind of working back from that,” Cowser said. “Finding the swing again, you know, the approach started to get a little bit more fine-tuned. ... I really wasn’t expecting that pitch there, but that just kind of tells me that I was, you know, timed up where I needed to be, and the approach was right.”

In the seventh, the game was paused briefly after Adley Rutschman lined a foul ball into the Rays dugout, hitting reliever Hunter Bigge, who is on the injured list with a lat strain. The Rays’ athletic trainer immediately called for additional medical personnel, and Bigge was put on a stretcher. He gave a thumb’s-up as he was carted off the field.

“Yeah, I mean, I saw it off my bat,” Rutschman said. “It’s really, really scary. Praying for him and for his recovery, and hope he’s doing OK.”

Rays broadcaster Ryan Bass posted on X that Bigge “was struck on the side of the face with that 105 mph line drive, but never lost consciousness. He can see out of both eyes, and continues to be evaluated at a local hospital.”

When the game resumed, Rutschman walked and Laureano singled an inning later, but the Orioles would not plate any more runs.

Morton, meanwhile, gave the Orioles what they needed most: length. Baltimore used five relievers on Wednesday, and two of them covered more than one inning. So the Orioles really needed Morton to eat innings, but he did even more. He allowed just one run in six innings of work.

“Throwing strikes, man, he pounded the zone,” Mansolino said. “That’s been kind of the whole thing with Charlie. When he’s in the zone, he’s throwing strikes. That’s kind of what we’ve gotten. ... We saw him early in the year, we saw him struggle a little bit and the last seven, eight outings, that’s just kind of been who he’s been.”

Seranthony Domínguez, who was one of two Orioles pitchers who didn’t contribute to the collapse Wednesday, took over in the seventh. He struggled at the start, walking a batter and giving up a base hit. A wild pitch allowed both runners to advance, but he got out of the inning without any damage, holding his glove up to the sky as he walked off the mound.

The Orioles’ bullpen again ran into trouble in the eighth, Gregory Soto letting two on and Bryan Baker coming in and walking the first batter he saw. Baker recovered, getting Jake Mangum to fly out to end the inning.

Félix Bautista got the save.

“It’s huge for us,” Cowser said. “Last night was kind of a heartbreaker, and, you know, to be able to come back today, and, you know, not really know when it’s going to come up and be able to come out and split the series was big for us.”

This article has been updated.