BOSTON — This isn’t just a slump anymore.

The Orioles got off to a hot start to begin the season, entering play June 10 with a record 20 games over .500 just 64 games into the year. Three months later, they are still 20 games over. Even after their encouraging bounce-back performance against the Red Sox on Tuesday, the club is 41-41 over that stretch. They’ve hung around in the American League East race only because the rest of the division has struggled just as much.

With 15 games left on their regular season schedule, the Orioles are running out of time to get hot before embarking on a potential playoff run. They’ve tried everything to find a spark. Veterans have held players-only meetings. They’ve given impassioned speeches to fire their teammates up before games. Manager Brandon Hyde has shaken up the lineup, reconfigured his bullpen and handed the ball to 12 starting pitchers. The front office addressed several roster holes at the trade deadline. There’s no clear solution.

“I mean, losing sucks, right? Morale is down when you lose and we’ve been kind of doing a lot of it recently,” said infielder Jordan Westburg, who’s on the injured list with a broken hand. “I’m not going to spare words, we haven’t been playing well in all facets of the game. So, yeah, it sucks. We’re all down a little bit. Guys, I think, are searching and putting a lot of pressure on themselves to right the ship. But deep down, I think we all have this confidence that we’re a good ballclub. We have the pieces to make a run.”

Injuries, particularly to the pitching staff, have played a significant role in the Orioles’ struggles. Westburg was an All-Star this season. Kyle Bradish and John Means would’ve been part of their playoff rotation if they didn’t undergo Tommy John elbow reconstruction. They’ve felt the absences of Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb in the bullpen and Grayson Rodriguez is on the IL for the second time. Infielders Ryan Mountcastle and Ramón Urías remain sidelined.

While the list is long, every team deals with injuries. The Orioles still have plenty of talent on their active roster. Yet every time they plug a hole, another leak springs open. On nights their starting pitcher delivers a gem, their streaky offense leaves him little run support. When the lineup starts clicking, defensive miscues start to pop up. The bullpen, though better of late, has cost them wins in the mid-to-late innings of otherwise promising games.

“To be honest, man, I feel like we’ve talked about it and talked about it and talked about it and at this point, it’s time to just go out of there and do it,” first baseman Ryan O’Hearn said. “Yeah, we’re missing some guys and hopefully they’ll be back soon, but I feel fortunate that we’re a game back at this point, considering how things have gone. So, we have to keep going. That’s it. Every day is a new day. We got to show up, compete our [butts] off and try to win a baseball game today. And that’s really it. That’s all you can do.”

The frustration has shown through on the field. Gunnar Henderson has thrown his helmet and bat to the ground in disgust at missed opportunities. Adley Rutschman was at a loss for answers during his latest postgame media scrum Sunday. Craig Kimbrel punched his glove and muttered to himself after allowing a pair of runs in Monday night’s 12-3 loss. Hyde threw a baseball at the dugout wall while watching his bullpen let the game get out of hand.

“It’s easy to be like, ‘Hey, just throw out that bad [at-bat].’ That’s very easy to say when you’re not the person going through it,” starting pitcher Corbin Burnes said. “You understand why guys get frustrated. You understand when you go through frustrations, why those guys feel frustrated. So, it’s just kind of a culmination of us not playing our best baseball, and everyone gets frustrated and it’s easy to say just forget about it and move on. To say it is one thing, to do it is another.

“It’s OK to be frustrated. It’s going to happen. Keep f—— chipping away at it. Keep grinding.”

With the New York Yankees ahead of them by only half a game in the division, everything the Orioles sought to do when they reported to spring training is still within reach. There’s every reason not to panic or let their frustrations of the past three months prevent them from pulling together for a postseason run. But this is new territory for the Orioles’ young core.

From the day Rutschman made his MLB debut through June 10 of this season, the Orioles had steadily improved. They emerged from their rebuild to post a winning record in 2022, reached the playoffs last season and opened this year’s campaign looking like a juggernaut. The losses players such as Rutschman, Henderson and Westburg have endured during this stretch are testing them in ways they had yet to experience at the MLB level.

“It can be a good thing,” said Kimbrel, who has pitched in nine playoff runs in his career. “You’d much rather be doing this now than being kicked in the face in the postseason, right? Some of these guys have tasted that. I think there’s a lot of guys in this clubhouse that have felt the taste of defeat, and it doesn’t taste good. But at the same time, you learn from it what you can do better, and going through this stretch we’re going through now, hopefully we have guys who are getting their minds and their bodies in good places to put us in good places to finish strong.”

One loss over their final two and a half weeks could be the difference between getting a bye to the AL Division Series and having to play in the Wild Card round. The top spot isn’t even guaranteed with the surging Kansas City Royals only three games back. With all the injured players they have working their way back, the bye could be crucial in helping get their roster back to full strength before they have to play October baseball.

It’s now or never for the Orioles.

“I think it just comes down to trusting ourselves, really going out there and just worrying about putting a good product on the field together pitch by pitch,” Westburg said. “If we get down early, who cares? We’re going to find a way that needs to be the mentality and if we’re up, alright, let’s step on somebody’s throat. I think right now that’s kind of what needs to happen as a whole. There just needs to be a little bit of, ‘OK, we don’t care what the noise is. We don’t care what happens during the game. Just find a way.’ So, hopefully we can do that.”