It was halfway through my conversation with Buck Showalter when things really started to take a turn for the Orioles.

The longtime manager called me Friday, his 69th birthday of all days, to answer a few questions — questions every Orioles fan is wrestling with. And it’s because Showalter has such history in Baltimore — he won 669 games and guided the franchise to its last playoff wins — that so many media types like myself are calling him and asking what he would do with a team that has cratered in the AL East.

This season has been going south for a while, but Friday’s game was a particular low point even by those standards. As I cradled the phone with an eye on the TV, the Orioles were coughing up their fifth run in the bottom of the sixth inning on their way to a 19-5 blowout in Boston. On the other end of the line, I heard Showalter — watching the same game — let out a weighty sigh as Jackson Holliday overthrew Adley Rutschman at home.

What people should realize — especially those who are rooting for Baltimore to rehire Showalter — is that nobody has an answer for definitively fixing this team. When I pressed him most closely about his future, including if he wants to manage again, he all but begged out of the question.

“I don’t have the answers, and I don’t think every situation is the same,” he said. “I’m not there. I’m not one of those guys who tells the pilot how to land the plane. What they’re doing there now, it’s a whole different thing.”

Dire circumstances make fans search for a hero and, among managers, Showalter is the closest thing the Orioles have had in decades. He was the last guy to lead them to a playoff series victory, a drought that is more than a decade long.

Showalter is still beloved in this town for whipping the 2010s Orioles into shape, including a 34-23 start when he was hired midway through a lost 2010 season. Under Showalter, young players such as Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters gained confidence and became the mainstays of a plucky roster that made the club respectable for the first time in more than a decade.

But Showalter’s past does feel firmly, well, in the past. Talking to Showalter, who last managed the Mets in 2023, is to dwell on how different this era is from 2010, starting with expectations. Very little was expected of the Orioles he joined 15 years ago, while the modern-day group has made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.

The problem, he thinks, might be that a young group is hitting its first big slump, and that can be particularly hard to reverse.

“The first time you have a young team that hits adversity, they’re not used to people asking, ‘What have you done for me lately?’” Showalter said. “You’re not the little engine that could anymore. You don’t sneak up on anybody.”

The closest thing to advice Showalter offered the Orioles was that, if their starting pitching got hot, they’d start winning again. Over the weekend (after we spoke), thanks to good starts from Trevor Rogers, Dean Kremer and Charlie Morton, the Orioles strung together three straight wins for the first time all season.

Showalter is not above liberally dispensing his baseball opinions. He thinks pitching staffs would be healthier if they were smaller, if pitchers pitched more often and if they were taught not to throw for maximum velocity and spin every time. He believes hitters can be overloaded with analytical information when they actually need to simplify. He wishes younger players didn’t play baseball year round, believing multisport athletes are healthier and more well-rounded competitors.

But if he has designs on managing again — much less trying to manage the Orioles again — he would not say so. Aside from the changes since he left Baltimore, including a new front office and new ownership, Showalter closed ranks around the managing fraternity.

After Brandon Hyde was fired, he texted him a supportive message (“He’s going to end up just fine,” he added). He hoped interim manager Tony Mansolino would immediately go on a 10-game winning streak to quash all the doubt that’s surfaced about this staff and this roster (the streak ended at three following a 7-4 loss Tuesday to the St. Louis Cardinals).

“I pull for him [Mansolino] every day,” Showalter said. “I don’t wish ill will on anybody who does this. It can be hard. You got the best players in the world, so when you get it going on, you’re not quite as good as it seems, and when you lose, they step on your neck and laugh. … Those jobs are precious. Only 30-some people have them, and I hope they all keep them. I’m not one of those people that works for a job someone else already has.”

Although I enjoyed our conversation, I was not struck by the impression that I was talking to the Orioles’ next manager.

Judging from a clubhouse and dugout that are often called quiet, in need of vocal leadership, the Orioles could use more of a blood-and-guts voice than Hyde’s. In 2010, the 54-year-old Showalter was perfect for those Orioles, but now Baltimore is probably better served searching for the Showalter of this era of baseball than Showalter himself.

Rerun managers happen in baseball but rarely work to everyone’s satisfaction. Billy Martin with the New York Yankees and Tony La Russa with the Chicago White Sox had largely unsatisfying returns. John Gibbons had a better second stint than first in Toronto but still couldn’t get over the top. The best second-stint manager was Atlanta’s Bobby Cox, who won a World Series, but he was as old in his last season with the Braves (69 in 2010) as Showalter is now.

Given how highly many in Baltimore still think of Showalter, leaving that 2010s nostalgia in the past might be the best thing for everyone’s future, including his own.

That is not to say Showalter will stay away from Baltimore. His son has a farm in Harwood, south of Annapolis. Showalter and his wife come up in the summer to escape the Texas heat. Although much has changed about the Orioles, Showalter acknowledged talking to part-owner Cal Ripken Jr. earlier in the day, but it was to catch up with each other’s families — not for Showalter to lobby for his next job.

He’ll be around in August when Jones will be inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame. Given how fondly Showalter’s teams are remembered here, the Orioles ought to consider honoring him in the Hall of Fame, too.

As for their next manager, when we spoke, Showalter wasn’t campaigning for his old job. And, as long as the Orioles are searching for answers, it’s probably best to call someone else.