The Orioles could have been forgiven for feeling some heat after dropping a weekend series to the Red Sox that featured a 17-run embarrassment and a rubber-game loss to a team that replaced its manager and much of its coaching staff before Sunday’s finale.

That kind of thing can put a dent in the confidence of a young team, but the O’s showed on Tuesday night that they might be made of stiffer stuff. Starting pitcher Shane Baz, who has been feeling his way around the first month of the season, settled into a nice rhythm and both the offense and defense went along for the ride in a 5-3 victory over the Houston Astros.

Struggling veteran Pete Alonso predicted something good was going to happen before the game, telling a group of reporters that he felt like the club was about to go on a run. Manager Craig Albernaz echoed that sentiment during his pregame media session and pointed to Alonso’s reputation as someone who is able to positively impact all of his teammates when he is in a groove at the plate.

Alonso delivered with a two-run home run in the fifth inning that would give the O’s a comfortable lead after the catching/DH combination of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo got them off to a rare early start with run-scoring hits in the first inning.

And it all came together because Baz was able to shake off a string of five winless performances to hold a pretty good Astros lineup to just a run on six hits over 5 ⅔ innings on the way to recording his first victory as an Oriole.

He has worked through the fifth inning in all of his starts, but it was clear that he was pitching with better command and he said afterward that his confidence is growing in all of the pitches in his repertoire.

“I feel like all the outings so far have just been okay, you know, kind of waiting for that one that gets you on track,” Baz said. “I felt like getting that first win out of the way, and obviously pulling out the first game of the series just helps a ton. I just feel good about where I am right now.

“A lot of credit to the staff here for helping me out … kind of pointing me in the right direction a lot of times and stuff like that. It’s good to feel like I’m getting better every outing.”

This performance was important for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that key rotation mates Trevor Rogers and Kyle Bradish also have not gotten off to optimal starts.

If you doubt that baseball is a confidence game, just look at what is going on with what Albernaz considers to be the best one-two catching combo in the game. Rutschman, who looked lost at the plate the past season and a half, is off to a terrific start and Basallo seems to be blooming right before our eyes.

The Orioles are hovering just below .500, which isn’t all that bad with so many other major league teams also trying to gain their footing. Third baseman Coby Mayo is coming off the best offensive week of his young big league career and Colton Cowser looks like he’s figuring some things out at the end of a very tough April.

No one is denying that the O’s have played some sketchy baseball over the past four weeks and still are making mistakes that Albernaz is committed to ironing out, but the pieces are here and it might be just a matter of them coalescing into a more finished product.

This series against the struggling Astros may provide the perfect opportunity to make an uplifting move in the right direction before heading this weekend to baseball’s ultimate proving ground – Yankee Stadium.