Tony Mansolino doesn’t read.

“I’ll be honest with you,” the Orioles interim manager said. “I never have. I especially won’t now as I sit in this seat.”

He doesn’t need to read, however, to guess what is being written. After the Orioles won their series against the New York Mets with a doubleheader sweep Thursday, Mansolino swiped at what he presumed has and will continue to be written about the club.

Forget the trade of right-hander Bryan Baker for a moment. To Mansolino and Orioles players, the plan remains: Win as much as possible, keep the team together, make the playoffs.

By the day, that plan’s likelihood is dwindling. But the wins against the Mets Thursday afternoon served as a sharp demarcation from the Baker trade of Thursday morning, and Mansolino emphasized as much.

“You guys don’t want to hear it, but there’s still time, and despite making a move this morning,” Mansolino said. “And I’m sure our obituary was probably getting written somewhere this morning because we made a trade.”

That obituary … may have already been written. But Mansolino wants to rip it up — that is, if he actually reads anything, which he says he does not, so …

Anyway, general manager Mike Elias hasn’t fully shut the door on the Orioles’ chances to stand pat or even buy at the deadline. “It’s definitely possible,” Elias said of a complete turnaround from the expected outcome. “It’s mathematically possible.”

Those chances improved Thursday. Suffering a sweep would’ve dropped the Orioles to 12 games under .500. Instead, the two wins pushed them to eight games below .500 (42-50) for the first time since May 6, when Brandon Hyde was still manager.

Since Hyde’s ouster, Baltimore is 27-22. Since left-hander Trevor Rogers spun a gem at Fenway Park in the second game of a doubleheader May 24, the Orioles are 26-16. There is a reason for the bullish feeling inside the clubhouse.

“We obviously faced a pretty good team today, and we won,” right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano said through team interpreter Yuto Sakurai. “In the past month or so, we’ve been playing really well. I still believe strongly that this team has a shot.”

Multiple times, members of the Orioles brought up the Tigers. Detroit traded right-hander Jack Flaherty to the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of the deadline last season. It added some pieces, held on to ace Tarik Skubal and then made an unexpected run to the final wild-card spot. The Tigers beat the Houston Astros in the first round.

At the beginning of July 2024, the Tigers were 38-46 — eight games under .500. They finished the season, from July onward, 48-30. Their overall record of 86-76 was good enough to sneak in and make October noise.

“You look at Detroit last year, they basically traded away some major league players and their play continued to improve when they made the playoffs,” Elias said. “This is a team that’s moving in the right direction, and we still have a lot of time left before the deadline.”

Added infielder Gunnar Henderson: “We’ve just got to continue to buy in together. I know the most recent [team] in this situation was the Tigers last year. They made an unbelievable run at the end. Just got to buy in together and continue to believe within ourselves. I feel like that’s the biggest thing that we’ve got to do, and continue to go out there and win ballgames.”

The Orioles are in this conundrum because of their disastrous beginning to the season, and even with more solid play of late, there are seven teams between Baltimore and the final wild-card spot. Still, before games concluded Thursday night, the Orioles were six games back in that race.

That’s not as substantial as it could be, given the 15-28 record at the time of Hyde’s firing.

“The way we started, how I started personally, Hyder getting fired, that’s rough,” right-hander Charlie Morton said. “You’re trying to be a pro, and you just kind of roll with the punches because that’s what’s required of us, right?”

So, Mansolino suggests, stop writing that the season is over. He may not read it, but he knows it’s out there.

“As to what the players read, I have no idea,” Mansolino said. “Maybe it does motivate them. Maybe it doesn’t. But my read on those guys is they have shown up and they have wanted to win and they want to stay here and they don’t want to go anywhere.”