After a fortnight of futility, the darkest days of the Orioles’ rebuild to date appear to be over. At the very least, their losing streak is.

The O’s snapped their 14-game skid by defeating the Twins, 7-4, on Tuesday at Camden Yards, using a team-wide offensive breakout to end their second-longest winless drought in franchise history. It marked their first victory since May 16, against the Yankees, a 16-day stretch that covered more than one-quarter of their season to date and translated to about 10% of their total schedule.

It ended Tuesday as the third-longest losing streak in the Majors in the past 15 years, with the type of fundamentally sound team-wide victory the Orioles hadn’t had since John Means’ no-hitter on May 5. The O’s lost 22 of 24 games following Means’ no-hitter, ending May with the worst record in the Majors and the third-worst single-month winning percentage in club history.

“It feels amazing to break out of that slump we were in,” winning pitcher Bruce Zimmermann said. “It all synced up finally for us tonight, and it was a really, really good team win.”

Tuesday’s win also snapped the O’s 16-game losing streak to the Twins, which dated back to 2018.

Now Baltimore can attempt to pick up the pieces and move on, from both.

“This was a natural reset -- we all decided to forget about May and come out strong in June,” Trey Mancini said. “The music [in the clubhouse] is blasting louder than I think I’ve ever heard it. We’re definitely enjoying it.”

What exactly brought about the party? Here is a breakdown of why the Orioles are celebrating -- the particulars of their first win in more than two weeks:

Inning: 1
The first run
How important is scoring first? Turns out, it's not actually super important. Over the course of their streak, the Orioles scored first in eight of their 14 losses, only to watch those leads evaporate in the later innings.

Still, it’s not bad to jump ahead early, which Baltimore did Tuesday when Cedric Mullins hit a leadoff triple off Michael Pineda and Mancini singled Mullins home.

For a team that’s struggled with runners in scoring position (1-for-their-last-30 entering play), Mancini’s early run-scoring knock proved cathartic. It set the tone on a night the O’s finished 4-for-7 with runners in scoring position, their best performance in those situations since May 5. The result was their first lead in 47 innings, dating back to last Wednesday.

Inning: 3
The defensive highlight
Mullins’ emergence as a two-way star has been a bright spot this season, coming with his customary plus defense in center field. Tuesday provided the defensive highlight of his season, and maybe the Orioles’ 2021 campaign to date.

Ranging 110 feet in 5.4 seconds, Mullins made a sliding play to rob Nelson Cruz of extra bases at the right-center field wall in the bottom of the third. It was one of two four-star catches for Mullins on the night, and inspired all sorts of praise postgame.

“That was one of the best catches I’ve ever seen in pro baseball,” Zimmermann said.

“That was the best play I’ve seen in three years here,” said manager Brandon Hyde.

“That was one of the best catches I’ve ever seen,” Mancini said. “It gave us a natural jolt of energy.”

Inning: 3
The big rally
Often over the past two weeks, Hyde sat in front of a Zoom camera either pregame or postgame, reiterating his belief that one big hit would shock the Orioles’ offense into rhythm. But it wasn’t a three-run homer that jump-started them Tuesday. It was something much rarer: a rally.

After the Twins tied the game on Kyle Garlick’s homer in the top of the inning, Mullins singled, stole second then scored on another Mancini RBI single. Then Anthony Santander and Freddy Galvis both singled, scoring Mancini, and Santander scored on DJ Stewart’s groundout. Ryan Mountcastle drove in Galvis with a double to left-center, Baltimore’s fifth hit off Pineda in six batters.

“He’s got middle-itis,” Jim Palmer said of Pineda on the MASN broadcast. “Everything he throws is in the middle of the plate.”

The Orioles capitalized. When the dust cleared, they’d chased Pineda and were up four runs, courtesy of their biggest inning in recent memory. They added Pedro Severino and Maikel Franco homers later in support of Zimmermann and their four relievers.

“That’s the team everyone in this clubhouse knows we can be,” Zimmermann said. “To see us put it all together was a great feeling, almost a sigh of relief to know that’s what we’re capable of when we play together.”

Inning: 5
Escaping the big jam
Striking out a career-high seven across 5 1/3 innings of two-run ball, Zimmermann enjoyed one of the finest starts of his young career. The key moment came in the fifth, when back-to-back singles from Willians Astudillo and Andrelton Simmons put Minnesota one big swing away from souring the O's starter's night. Zimmermann responded by punching out Garlick and Josh Donaldson to end the frame, creating an emotionally charged moment as he left the mound.

“That was the pitch of the game,” Hyde said, of the Donaldson third strike. “[Zimmermann] emptied it there.”

When Zimmermann exited for good in the sixth, the O’s lead was 6-2. He became the first Baltimore starter to earn a victory since Means on May 5; he also earned the victory (in relief) in the Orioles’ last win, back on May 16, against New York.

Inning: 7, 9
The bullpen hangs on
While the offense had dragged the Orioles down as of late, the pitching (7.17 ERA during the losing streak) was the more common culprit over the course of the past two-plus weeks. The bullpen-wide regression, in particular, contributed to several blown leads late in games, forced the removal of Cesar Valdez from the closer role and left Hyde with few reliable options -- especially with Paul Fry down Tuesday.

That's why Hyde watched with approval as Tanner Scott limited the damage in the seventh after Dillon Tate loaded the bases, and Cole Sulser worked around two baserunners in the ninth to record his first save of 2021.

“I felt a lot more relief than happiness at that point,” Hyde said. “That was the most vocal our dugout has been in three years.”