Late on the afternoon of June 10, as the Red Sox readied their belongings for a road swing through Miami and Chicago, there was evidence of nothing but peace inside the dressing area of the Fenway Park clubhouse.

A third straight loss had stretched its skid to six defeats in seven games, the latest of which came with the Sox believing they were victimized by a couple of key calls in the ninth inning. But with the bus awaiting, several players were laughing with each other; having left the field barking at an umpire, Dustin Pedroia left the locker room cracking a joke.

Fast forward a week, and there’s yet another report painting the Boston clubhouse as a place starkly different than that notably relaxed room. According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, citing off-the-record sources, some Sox are so disgruntled with their situation that “calls and texts and complaints about daily events and exchanges are being sprayed all over the baseball landscape as some involved share their frustration with friends and family and agents.” The dissension is deep and irreconcilable, Olney said, the product of problems with communication and handling.

With their team mired in mediocrity, what’s left of a deteriorating Red Sox Nation seeks to know which is the more accurate representation of that room: Are they professionals unaffected by the frustrations of losing? Or are they a band of misers made more melancholy by slights both real and perceived?

The reality is that the answer doesn’t matter.

Along their winding, oft-woeful slide to 33-33 and last place in the American League East, the Red Sox have been increasingly labeled as unlikeable, as if the players’ popularity or personality has anything to do with their performance. Certainly there’s something to be said for chemistry in sports; it’s the foundation of being comfortable, and success begins with comfort.

But there have been plenty of baseball teams that have bonded like a brotherhood and still been awful on the field. Likewise, there have been plenty of baseball teams full of dysfunction and dislike and disdain who coexisted brilliantly between the lines. Never, though, has a baseball team won anything of significance without consistently playing good ball.

So if Ben Cherington endeavors to fix the Sox, he’d best start there before he sorts through the bushel and starts tossing the bad apples.

If Kevin Youkilis is traded, it should be because he’s hitting .215, and not because he’s unhappy about the possibly of a reduced role. If other veterans are sold off, it should be because the team has determined it can’t compete as currently constituted, and not because it needs a culture change. If Josh Beckett is put on the trading block, it should be because there’s a market for a pitcher who’s given his team a chance to win in 10 of his 12 starts, and not because he has an ornery presence publicly.

Ideally, players like Youkilis and Beckett and other veterans would be leaders, and it would be clearer that they’re nearer to being a solution than a problem. But, ultimately, talk is cheap, and attitude is irrelevant if talent doesn’t take over.

Look no further than last year. Some have suggested the Sox’ September collapse has carried over, with its remnants partially to blame for the way this year has begun, and having created a hypersensitive environment in which small fires burn longer and bigger than they otherwise might.

That 2011 disaster has long been blamed on the beer-and-chicken attitude that persisted, and on a clubhouse gone awry. But look at it strictly from a baseball perspective. In the final month, there were four games in which Daniel Bard either coughed up a lead or entered in a tie and exited losing in the late innings. Jon Lester posted an 8.24 earned run average over his last four starts. Beckett allowed six earned runs in each of his last two starts. And Jonathan Papelbon, after blowing one save in his first 59 appearances, blew two in his final four.

If any of that hadn’t happened — if Bard had only blown two games, if Lester or Beckett had delivered one more decent start among the six, or if Papelbon had remained reliable — the Sox still would’ve made the playoffs. The collapse wouldn’t have been nearly as catastrophic. The fallout wouldn’t likely have been so scandalous.

And Joe Maddon’s Rays wouldn’t have had anything to show for their late run. Their themed road trips and love-each-other attitude would’ve earned them just as much as it had during the two middling months of 29-28 baseball that proceeded their push. Come October, they would’ve merely been among those envying what John Lackey and his beer-swigging teammates had achieved between orders from Popeye’s.

As it were, Terry Francona lost his job, and Boston hired Bobby Valentine as manager — but it was silly of us to expect he would change a culture that’s been shaped by the climate created by ownership, and ultimately cultivated by most of these same players. It runs deeper than the influence of a single man. And injuries have done Valentine no favors in his effort to wield that influence.

Already the 2012 Sox have used 41 players, plus Jose Iglesias, who was called up but didn’t play. All of last season they used 49, and in the championship season of 2007 they used just 40. So many pieces moving, faces changing and roles evolving can’t help foster cohesion — but the truth is the injuries have damned them far more on the field than in the clubhouse.

Eventually, talent takes over. It did in ‘04 and ‘07, when Derek Lowe, Tim Wakefield and Coco Crisp were unhappy over losing jobs but still left with rings. And it did in 2001, when the Sox struggled not because of the attitudes of Mike Lansing, Carl Everett and Shea Hillenbrand — but because those guys stunk.

These Red Sox might stink, too. Time will tell, and if that time comes in the next six weeks, Cherington should start selling pieces to begin rebuilding his baseball team.

If he does that well enough, his clubhouse will take care of itself.

Dave D’Onofrio covers the Red Sox for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. His e-mail address is ddonof13@gmail.com.