The old one was moldy. Sitting in some closet, hibernating for winter in the B&O Warehouse, it collected dust. So the Orioles trashed the 2024 hydration station. The sparkly new 2025 version arrived at Camden Yards on Saturday. It was quickly outfitted with orange and black tape, then left in the home dugout, patiently waiting.

When Baltimore’s first 13 batters failed to reach base, it felt like the plastic treasure would have to wait. It seemed as if this would be another episode in a series of recent Orioles hitting woes. Manager Brandon Hyde thought his guys were “really internal” early in the game, disjointed, all trying to get something going. “We need to get better at that,” he said.

They needed only one hit to snowball on a chilly Baltimore night.

Heston Kjerstad, an outfielder who’s gaining regular playing time for the first time in his career while Colton Cowser remains on the injured list, christened the new hydration station with a fifth inning two-run home run to center field. It was the first Orioles hit of the day, sparking a 5-4 come-from-behind win over the Toronto Blue Jays.

That’s the magic of the hydration station.

“Huge part of who we are identity-wise,” Cedric Mullins said. “That’s what our offense can do.”

There’s a brief history worth retelling after an Orioles win that felt so indicative of what the best Orioles baseball has looked like post-rebuild.

The homer hose made its debut in Baltimore’s dugout in 2023. It’s the brainchild of former Orioles pitcher Cole Irvin, an idea stemming from the team’s spring training talent show and manifesting into 183 home runs, just outside the top half of Major League Baseball that season.

The bit has since turned Camden Yards into a water park where they also play baseball.

Hit a single? These 2025 Orioles mimic a wet willy. An extra-base hit means the player standing on second or third flings an imaginary fishing line toward the dugout, while his teammates flop around like fish. Such hits are accompanied by an easily excitable Mr. Splash spraying patrons in left-center field.

Last year, the Orioles upgraded from one homer hose to a group hydration station. Conceptually, it’s the same, but now anyone who scores on the home run can get in on the fun, sipping water from multiple funnels. Mullins’ walk preceding Kjerstad’s knock had them sipping together. With a new dugout toy, the 2024 Orioles collectively hit 235 home runs, trailing only the New York Yankees (237) for most in the league.

Baltimore came flying out of the gate this season, hitting 10 home runs in its first three games (sans a hydration station). Then, before Saturday, it managed only two the next 10 games. The bats went quiet. Real quiet, hitting .196 as a team through the first eight games of April.

That felt like reason enough to bring back the hydration station. There were rumblings of a potential new home run celebration. Ryan O’Hearn said the team talked it over during spring training, with a consensus vote to bring it back. Other MLB teams have played with jackets, helmets or chains. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Baltimore’s is a fun dugout tradition. And these Orioles, whose bats were on life support in Arizona up until Kjerstad’s missile Saturday, need their goofy celebration to get the vibes of this season tracking back toward playoff expectations.

“I’m not concerned about it,” Hyde said. “I think we need to start swinging the bat better. I think we need to start putting together more consistent at-bats and be a little bit more competitive at the plate. I think home runs will come when that happens. … We have guys with a lot of power, we’re going to put some big power numbers up this year. It just hasn’t happened yet.”

Take Ryan Mountcastle, for example. The powerful first baseman has 19 hard-hit balls this season, which Statcast defines as 95-plus-mph exit velocity. Only five of those have resulted in hits, eliciting more double plays (2) than extra-base knocks (1). O’Hearn and Gunnar Henderson both clocked 108 mph off the bat in Saturday’s win. Both ended in outs.

Such is the case among Orioles hitters.

They looked downtrodden the first four innings against Toronto. Then Kjerstad’s homer happened, followed by Adley Rutschman’s encore that evened the score. Rutschman ran right through home plate into the dugout and up to the far side to take a much-earned swig. The energy shifted.

“Adley delivered exactly what we needed there,” Mullins said. “Not only with the home run but with his attitude after.”

Maybe the alchemy — defined as the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life — of the hydration station helps.

“Hopefully we get a lot of use out of it,” O’Hearn said.

Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.