Obviously, the Orioles needed a series win over the beleaguered Detroit Tigers over the weekend, but it’s what they do with this qualified emotional lift during the rest of the homestand that could define their season.

The Tigers couldn’t have shown up at Orioles Park at a better time, arriving in a 2-14 funk. The O’s had just had their heads handed to them by the first-place Tampa Bay Rays and needed to do something to change the subject before the Rays show up Monday to try to repeat the three-game sweep that looked too easy at Tropicana Field.

That mission was accomplished when the long-struggling Colton Cowser launched a three-run, walkoff home run against likely Hall of Fame closer Kenley Jansen to give the O’s a dramatic 5-3 victory in the first game of a rain-generated split doubleheader.

How important was that one heart-stopping swing? From a team perspective, that remains to be seen, since the Orioles could not double down on the Tigers in the nightcap. But it had to lift some of the weight of a very frustrating first two months of the season off the broad shoulders of Cowser, whose .198 batting average and huge strikeout ratio are still in need of repair.

Maybe it can still be an elixir for a team that has come up short in a number of very similar late-inning situations on the way to the decidedly sub.500 record they carried into the series. “The Milkman” certainly would like to think that is the case.

“Absolutely, I feel like you’re always just a couple of wins from getting on a roll, and I feel like we have the right clubhouse to do it,’’ Cowser said. “I think everyone has the right mindset in here. You just have to keep showing up and getting your work in and playing good, clean baseball.”

No doubt, the Orioles were feeling the same way when they bounced back from a discouraging four-game sweep in the Bronx to win the ensuing home series against the well-heeled Yankees 11 days ago. In that case, they were not able to parlay that positive energy into a sustained recovery, losing five of their next six games against the Nationals and Rays.

So what do they have to do to deliver some payback to the Rays? Well, they could start by walking Orioles-killer Yandy Diaz every time he comes to the plate, but that would look too much like a flag of surrender at a time when they need to play with increasing confidence instead of anything resembling resignation.

What they really need is some magic potion that would allow them to score more runs in the early innings, but since anabolic steroids are now out of fashion they’ll have to keep grinding.

In both games Sunday, the second a 4-1 defeat that ended an eight-game Tigers losing streak, the Orioles could not shake their troubling tendency to do almost nothing in the early innings, managing just one hit in the first five against left-hander Framber Valdez in the opener and just two singles over 5 ⅔ innings against right-hander Troy Melton in the nightcap.

Valdez, of course, was the premier starter the O’s tried and failed to sign during the offseason. Melton was making his first big league start of the year after a spring elbow injury sidelined him for three months.

Gunnar Henderson finally woke up the crowd with his 11th home run of the year in the sixth inning of the win, but the Tigers took a 3-1 lead into the eighth before Taylor Ward drove in a run with a single in that inning and Cowser delivered the high drama when he hammered a two-strike fastball into the right-center field bleachers to earn a wild Gatorade shower at home plate.

The Orioles also came from behind in the late innings on Friday night and brought the tying run to the plate in the series finale but could not make it three successful comebacks in a row. But winning the first two games in that fashion was still an encouraging development.

Turning point?

We won’t have to wait long to find out. The Orioles play their next 13 games against the AL East, following the series against the Rays with four more home games against the Blue Jays before heading into June with road series against the Red Sox and Jays.

Where they stand after all that should tell us a lot about their chances of competing in the slow-to-develop American League wild-card race.

Stay tuned.