Red Sox, fresh off firing their manager, finish a series win over the Orioles

These Red Sox players had a hell of a night before arriving at the ballpark Sunday. Garrett Whitlock, the right-handed reliever, found out the news while lying in bed when teammate Trevor Story FaceTimed him. Roman Anthony, the 22-year-old star, stood in front of a gaggle of reporters in Camden Yards’ visiting clubhouse and summed up the whole saga well.

“A lot of shit’s going on right now,” Anthony said shortly before the series finale against the Orioles.

Boston fired manager Alex Cora and multiple other members of its coaching staff Saturday night.

But when the players arrived with an interim manager, and after they listened — somewhat skeptically — to the words of president of baseball operations Craig Breslow, they pushed all of that aside to play a baseball game.

Whitlock, who did little to hide his ire at the situation, said the Red Sox’s front office made it clear the baseball players were paid to play baseball, not concern themselves with staffing decisions. So Boston played baseball and beat the Orioles, 5-3, despite the tempest surrounding the team.

Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said he has gotten to know Cora over the years, “and he always treated me awesome and with great respect, and he’s a great baseball dude.”

“You hate to see anyone lose their job, and I would imagine, on Boston’s side, it was an extremely tough decision with everything he brought there, and winning the World Series in ’18, and how competitive they have been and still are,” Albernaz said. “It’s tough to hear. But, knowing AC, he’ll land on his feet and he’ll be just fine.”

Still, what does that say about Baltimore?

The Orioles are off to a better start than the Red Sox (at least according to the win-loss record), and yet against a team in a tailspin, Baltimore lost the series to drop once again to two games below .500 (13-15).

“We know we can put up as many runs as the best teams,” shortstop Gunnar Henderson said. “I know we’re one of the best teams at doing it. We just got to go out and do it. It’s just a matter of going out there and proving it.”

The Orioles and Red Sox (11-17) both made maddeningly sloppy plays Sunday. Boston ran into two outs on the bases by the fourth inning — something the Orioles did last series. And Baltimore misplayed multiple balls, including an error from Jeremiah Jackson at second and a misread from Taylor Ward in left.

The ball Ward missed was made more difficult by the jutting out of the left field wall, but he turned himself around and couldn’t track the fly ball. It dropped on the warning track for a double (although Ceddanne Rafaela was soon doubled off when he popped off third base on his slide).

“Our outfield defense has been good,” Albernaz said. “There’s been some bad games, and I think, for us, it’s every day, we’re just trying to get a tick better for all of our guys. Get to a point where we look up at the end of the year and our defense is better than where we started, and our guys are working.”

The Red Sox broke through in the fifth inning against right-hander Kyle Bradish. Caleb Durbin singled to begin the frame, stole second, then scored on Andruw Monasterio’s single. Willson Contreras then lifted a hanging slider from Bradish 406 feet for a two-run blast.

That marked the end of Bradish’s day. He largely limited damage, but he walked four batters and allowed four hits in five innings. And, as has been a trend this year, his velocity noticeably declined throughout. His sinker averaged 95.8 mph in the first inning. That was down to 92.7 mph in the fifth.

When asked about his velocity decline, Bradish said, “it is what it is.”

“We’ve seen outings where it holds the whole game and seen outings where it dips or comes back,” Bradish said.

And, even with solo homers from Samuel Basallo and Henderson against left-hander Connelly Early, Boston widened the gap with three straight hits against left-hander Grant Wolfram.

Wolfram allowed two singles and a triple from Rafaela before he was pulled with two more runs on the board.

For as dominant as Baltimore looked in Friday’s series opener, when the club belted six homers, the offense posted flat performances the next two games. The Orioles were blown out 17-1 on Saturday and didn’t produce enough baserunners Sunday to mount much of a threat. They fell to 0-6 against left-handed starters.

“I’d like to take some of the responsibility,” said Henderson, although he had two RBIs Sunday. “I haven’t really been getting on base for the guys behind me. Being able to do that, I just got to keep working my butt off. So I’d like to take some responsibility for that.”

Albernaz said there’s a reason he installed a “Day One” mentality in Baltimore. He wants his players to attack each day without carrying any weight over from the previous game.

“Every day you show up, it’s a different challenge, different problem you’re solving,” Albernaz said.

Sunday’s challenge?

“We just couldn’t get traffic going, getting guys on base, and deliver the big hits,” Albernaz said. “I think, for us, it’s just getting guys on base and getting traffic for everyone, so then our hits and our homers become, instead of solo shots, they’re two-run shots and three-run shots.”

This was another example of Baltimore’s volatility, though. It occurred in surprising circumstances, with seemingly everything stacked against Boston.

One of these teams spent the previous evening saying goodbye to a longtime manager. One of these teams listened to the front office’s explanations for why a change came now, about a month into the season. And yet it was the other team — the Orioles — that appeared to sleepwalk through the finale of this series.

This article has been updated.