If you want to get an idea of what separates Buck Showalter from the other managers who have tried and failed to right the Good Ship Oriole, maybe you should take a peek into his office.

It looks more like an NFL war room than the usual baseball-themed managerial inner sanctum. The far wall — which is the first thing that jumps out at anyone going from the clubhouse to the field — is covered by a large magnetic board displaying the rosters of the Orioles, the Norfolk Tides and the Bowie Baysox. On another wall is an erasable calendar board for keeping track of the pitching schedule.

Showalter doesn't ascribe great meaning to any of it, but you have to wonder.

"That's just a familiarity thing," he said. "That was just the Double-A and Triple-A teams. We've got a pitching-rotation calendar. I'm just trying to familiarize myself with them. To be frank with you, I just don't know them. I'm trying to familiarize myself as much as possible."

That might be the whole story, but the office decor is so consistent with Showalter's reputation as a detail guy that — intentionally or not — it has to send a message to every player who walks past: If you're not with the program, there's probably someone on that board who would love the opportunity to take your place.

Though Showalter has worked hard to play down the whole new-sheriff-in-town concept, it's fairly obvious that the Orioles already are a different team than the one that interim manager Juan Samuel handed over to him Monday.

The on-field results speak for themselves, even if it's far too early to draw any real conclusions from the small number of games he has managed so far. The Orioles won each of Showalter's first four games, playing largely mistake-free baseball and showing surprising resilience on several occasions when they were faced with late-inning adversity.

Skepticism certainly is fair game at this moment. The Orioles swept a four-game series against the first-place Texas Rangers on the road heading into the All-Star break and quickly reverted to previous form. They also swept the Boston Red Sox earlier this season and were unable to sustain any momentum.

But this time the timing is just too perfect. The O's started playing better the moment Showalter put on the uniform, and no one in the clubhouse calls it a coincidence.

"People are on their p's and q's," center fielder Adam Jones said right after delivering the sudden-death game-winning single in Friday night's 2-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox. "We're playing smarter. We're [doing] all the small things we weren't doing."

Pitcher Brad Bergesen, who delivered the club's fourth straight strong start Friday, also confirmed that Showalter's arrival has spawned a different mindset.

"Anytime there's a managerial change," he said, "everybody wants to come in and make a good impression on the guy. I wanted to come in and have a strong performance."

Of course, it's also fair to ask why the players couldn't reach that level of focus and commitment when Dave Trembley and Samuel were in the manager's office, but you're not likely to find anyone with a plausible explanation.

"Honestly, I can't answer that question," Jones said Friday night. "We're moving forward, and we're in a pretty good place. We just need to come out again tomorrow and play hard."

Ty Wigginton agrees.

"I don't think you can look back," he said. "You've got to look forward. I think it comes down to getting that confidence and just rolling with it."

Who knows where it goes from here. Showalter has cast the next two months as an evaluation period, but not entirely at the expense of trying to win enough games to create hope of a turnaround next season.

In the meantime, he appears to have dug something out of this team that his immediate predecessors could not — a heightened sense of self-esteem that has only rarely been on display this season.

"I've always thought it's there," Nick Markakis said. "We've got great players. We've got great talent. It's just a matter of putting it all together."

peter.schmuck@baltsun.com

Listen to Peter Schmuck on WBAL (1090 AM) at noon Fridays and Saturdays and with Brett Hollander on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6. Also, check out his blog, "The Schmuck Stops Here," at baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog.