There was no formal discussion beforehand, no consensus reached among the Orioles hitters on what to do when they reached base. As these things tend to go, it began randomly, and an exact origin is hard to pin down.

Colton Cowser thought it had something to do with how many players ride electric scooters. Danny Coulombe, who rode a scooter during spring training, said “that’s a good guess” in a mysterious fashion, indicating the query was on the mark.

But Ryan O’Hearn thought it had more to do with revving an engine. And Ryan Mountcastle and Jordan Westburg were at a loss. They just did it because everyone else was doing it.

For as well oiled as Baltimore’s offense looked in its 11-3 victory on opening day against the Los Angeles Angels, the process for picking a new celebration needs greasing in the coming weeks.

The early candidate, though? A motorbike-inspired revving that signifies the offense is warming up and ready to take off.

Or maybe in a week it’ll be something else. And the week after that? There’s no telling what might occur until one of these antics sticks.

“The guys just have random stuff that comes out,” said Adley Rutschman, who appeared to be the first Orioles player to flash the new rev celebration when he reached first base in the second inning. “Start the engines or whatever, guys are just trying to find stuff that looks cool on the bases, really, and then you try to put, ‘Oh, this is what it’s about.’ But as long as it looks cool, that’s really what matters.”

Does it look cool?

“It kind of looks cool.”

Westburg saw Rutschman crouch and flick his wrists as if he was on a scooter. It slipped the infielder’s mind when he reached base, however, until he made eye contact with Cowser.

In the dugout, the rookie outfielder was “frickin’ revving it up,” Westburg said. He had no choice.

“OK, I guess I’ve gotta do it,” Westburg thought. “He got my attention. I’m not sure where it started. I just did it because I saw Adley got on first and he threw one up, and I got on first and the first person I look at in the dugout is Cowser.”

This is how these things start.

“So everyone knows,” Rutschman said, “there’s a lot of minds working together to figure out what we’re going to try to do this year.”

Last year, Baltimore’s water theme took over. Based on a spring training talent show skit, the Orioles turned on the faucet at first base, hit the sprinkler at second and third and drank from a water hose when they hit a home run.

The year before, Baltimore’s hitters turned to “Call of Duty” for inspiration. Each hit was cause for celebration with a pair of faux binoculars, as if they were calling in an airstrike on the video game.

Anthony Santander didn’t catch the memo that anything had changed entering 2024. He was fully expecting a sprinkler celebration before a player opted to rev the engine, and now he doesn’t know what to do.

“Honestly, brother, I have no idea,” Santander said.

Soon he might.

Or he won’t.

“We’ll see,” Rutschman said. “It could be totally different in a month. Just look out for it and you’ll probably see some guys doing random stuff.”