Over the last few months, we’ve seen that Mike Elias can arrive at the right answer. He’s just always far behind schedule.

Speaking to the press Tuesday was emblematic of how the season has gone for the Orioles’ general manager. Instead of bringing insight to one of the club’s most consequential decisions, when he fired Brandon Hyde, Elias took four days and a flight to Milwaukee before answering critical questions (“I just needed a couple days,” he said), letting his players and his interim manager twist in the wind all the while.

You can hear the value in the admissions Elias offered Tuesday. He took responsibility for the poor quality and depth of starting pitching. He acknowledged that key players have underperformed “for a while now” and need new approaches.

He even teased “sweeping changes to the way we do business in the warehouse,” the most promising sign yet that a notoriously insular front office may actually be looking in the mirror.

If only these insights had been learned this past winter — insights that many in the baseball world were actually screaming in Baltimore’s direction. If Elias had figured some of these things out in December, the Orioles might be having a better May.

During a long, painful rebuild that included two 100-plus loss seasons, Elias’ most valuable quality was patience. But for a team expected to vie for a playoff spot, patience can be a weakness, not a strength. Now that team is languishing at the bottom of the standings.

As the Orioles grapple with a seven-game losing streak that has stubbornly outlasted their manager, the gravity of Elias’ perilous situation has now struck him like a sledgehammer. He understands, at last, that he needs a firmer hand. He sees, finally, that people’s jobs — including his own — are on the line.

“We’re pretty stunned about that, but we’re reacting to it,” he said. “We’re not in denial about it and I’m working to fix it as rapidly as I can, and I’m in a position where, regardless of how it affects me or my personal situation, I have to make decisions that I judge in collaboration with my bosses and the people around me to be in the best interest of the Baltimore Orioles franchise, so that’s what I’m doing.”

We’re still gauging, frankly, whether Elias can be decisive and forceful enough to take Baltimore to an actual contending level. Too often, he has chosen half-measures or even inaction, trusting the development of his hand-assembled talent to buoy the team.

Some of this mentality leaked into his explanations: “This team hasn’t been, like, fully healthy for almost a year.” But even though the number of injuries has felt, at times, extreme, the club still has many of its mainstays available. Teams are rarely ever “fully” healthy, and only three MLB teams have a worse winning percentage than Baltimore.

While he must get credit for the success the Orioles had in the previous three seasons, almost all of his mistakes can be chalked up to a lack of urgency.

Elias hoarded prospects whom the Orioles didn’t have the ability to play in the majors, then dealt them to decidedly mixed results. One wonders if that is what’s happening with Coby Mayo, who has yet to stick in the big leagues or define a clear position there.

The season has been a brutal reflection on his approach to free agency, when the Orioles went into the offseason with the freedom to spend more. Elias didn’t have an appreciable backup plan for losing out on Corbin Burnes, and the hitters he signed to better attack left-handed pitching haven’t panned out so far.

When it came time for coaching changes in October, the front office made a prudent decision to keep Hyde — but defanged him by dismissing some of his most experienced assistants. That is typically the start of a spiral for managers, especially when the new coaches are doing some of the same things as the old ones in the hitting department.

Elias’ vote of confidence in Hyde earlier this month, when his team was already steeped in ugly losses, was another mistimed calculation that has now forced him to eat his own endorsement.

As Elias pledged that he was doing everything in his power to evaluate the coaching, scouting and internal processes that have led to this point, we are forced to wonder how long all of this will take. He acknowledged the Orioles have dug themselves a hole, but “there’s plenty of time to play better baseball.” The optimism discounts that Baltimore would have to play close to a 100-win pace the rest of the season to put themselves in position for a playoff spot, and everyone can see that this group is in no position to do that right now.

There is time for Elias to change his own approach. It may be hard to make personnel and roster moves in May, but nothing should be off the table for a franchise that has to shake itself free from the muck it’s stuck in.

Given how behind schedule Baltimore’s GM has been so far, though, the biggest looming question is whether Elias will figure it out in time to save not just this team, but himself.

For a rebuild, patience is a virtue. For a contender, too much can be the downfall.