Zach Wilt: How quickly things change

Since we last spoke, the Orioles have won five of their last six games and grabbed the second wild card spot in the American League. A week ago, I searched far and wide for good news to share about my favorite ballclub after they were no-hit by Hisashi Iwakuma in the finale of what ended up being a 4-5 West Coast road trip against the A's, Angels and Mariners. Today, I'm struggling to figure out how to cram all these positive nuggets into 600 words. How quickly things can change in baseball.

Last night, Henry Urrutia hit his first big league homer, a walk-off to secure a split against the NL East-leading New York Mets. Hank had a cup of coffee with the Orioles in 2013 and recorded 16 hits in 58 at-bats. Fifteen of those hits were singles, the other was a triple. Urrutia bulked up coming into spring training this season, and on August 19, he delivered in the clutch with an important game-winner for the big league club.

Those type of dramatics are nothing new for these Birds. Hometown kid Steve Clevenger was the hero who helped the Orioles sweep the Athletics in four games at Camden Yards. Clevenger was recalled on Friday and - just three days later - hit his first homer since June of 2012. The Pride of Pigtown had a career-high four hits on Sunday, but his three-run blast in fourth inning on Monday proved to be the game-winner.

The O's bats seemed to go silent when they returned from the All-Star break, but Sunday they flexed their muscles and showed what they're truly capable of doing. Six Orioles recorded three or more hits and four players drove in three runs or more. Adam Jones homered twice, joining Caleb Joseph and Gerrardo Parra as O's going deep. The Birds scored 18 runs and matched a franchise-high 26 hits. Jason Garcia had a plate appearance and Ike Davis pitched to him. It was a wild one.

This monster offensive output came a day after Chris Davis belted his 33rd and 34th homers. Down 3-0, the Big Fella cut Oakland's lead to 3-2 with a two-run homer in the fourth inning, then followed Parra's game-tying shot with a walk-off in the bottom of the ninth. Davis is now two homers shy of MLB-leading Nelson Cruz and is tied for the most homers in August (eight). Davis is on pace to finish 2015 with 46 longballs and 121 RBIs.

This recent run began when the Orioles returned home after an off-day and a disappointing road trip. On August 13, they were a game over .500 and 2 1/2 games back in the wild card. Now, they're 62-57 and would face the Jays in Toronto for the play-in Wild Card Game if the season ended today. Back on Friday the 14th, the Orioles rallied back from a 4-0 deficit and then had to outlast Oakland with the help of a Manny Machado walk-off homer in the 13th inning to pick up the W.

And that's the beauty of this magnificent game. Seven days ago, the forecast looked gloomy over Camden Yards. The Birds were slipping out of the playoff picture and trending in the wrong direction after being dominated by Seattle's crafty righty. Today, they're one of the hottest teams in the game, crushing the ball and coming up with the big plays along the way as they pick up wins. Of course, momentum is only as good as your next day's starter. So it's up to you, Mr. Gonzalez, to keep this thing going.

Zach Wilt blogs about the Orioles at Baltimore Sports Report. Follow him on Twitter: @zach_wilt. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.