At the top of the hit parade

BOSTON — The starting pitching may have stolen the headlines, but last May, as the Red Sox season was sinking, it was their purportedly potent offense dragging them down.

Boston's plan to mitigate the flaws in its pitching staff with some of the game's best bats veered disastrously off course when, for an entire month in 2015, the Sox scored fewer than three runs per game. By early June, principal owner John Henry wondered publicly if the team's long-standing offensive philosophy — of being patient and working long pitch counts — had become obsolete.

There are no such crises of introspection this year.

After their Friday the 13th loss to the Astros (7-6), the Red Sox have scored five more runs this May than they did the entire month a season ago. Boston has scored at least 11 runs in four straight games — the first time any major-league team has done that in nine seasons. One of those games came against last year's American League Cy Young winner, another against the third-place finisher. (The Sox staff has the man who finished between them — David Price.)

"I don't think I've ever seen anything like this, to be honest," said Xander Bogaerts, whose .331 average is fifth in the American League, just ahead of three other teammates in the top 10. "I wish it could continue, but 10 runs every game is pretty tough. It's unbelievable to be part of right now."

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The hit parade continued Friday night against the Houston Astros. The Red Sox were ahead 5-1 in the bottom of the third inning.

This week's offensive surge has placed an exclamation point on several months of peak offensive performance by the Sox. Entering Friday, Boston has scored 37 percent more runs than the league average; no team has done that for an entire season in the divisional era (since 1969). They're scoring more than a run a game better than the next-best offense in the American League.

Going back further, Boston has scored more than 5.6 runs per game since the start of last August — a stretch of 94 games. During that time, the lineup has grown into a one-through-nine machine — much the way it was in the championship years of 2004, 2007 and 2013. On both Wednesday and Thursday, all nine starters recorded at least one hit.

"It’s just relentlessness up and down the lineup," manager John Farrell said. "And that’s the one word we try to take pride in. That means you’ve prepared, that means you’ve not given at-bats away or innings away from the mound. The more we can make that customary, we’re probably in pretty good shape."

The depth of the offense extends to its ability to score in different ways.

Yes, the Red Sox have homered in 14 straight games, but they're also second in the league in stolen bases while being caught the fewest times. They've fostered an all-fields approach that undercuts the effectiveness of defensive shifts. While the league hits .294 against shifts; the Red Sox hit .367.

"We're a confident team, we're a comfortable team. We know one another and we go out there functioning as one," bench coach Torey Lovullo said. "It's a belief in one another that the guy next to you is working just as hard in preparing for that moment. The feeling is pretty dynamic."