McAdam: Now that bats are hot, Red Sox are steamrolling teams

The Red Sox fifth win a row was played in a steady downpour, with puddles pooling on the warning track and the mound left a muddy mess.

In some ways, that was perfectly symbolic of the home team's recent offensive awakening. In recent weeks, it's as if someone turned  on the spigot, letting everything gush out.

The team's 11-2 thrashing of the Seattle Mariners was the eighth win in the last nine games and 11th in the last 13. In those 13 games, the Red  Sox have scored seven or more runs eight times. The Sox lead the league in runs scored, walks and on-base percentage, while ranking in the top three in homers hit, batting average and OPS.



First, it was the starting rotation which regained its footing and set the club on a course correction. More recently, the offense has followed suit, making like the same fearsome lineup from last year, capable of scoring in bunches and obliterating everything in its path.

In May, the team has averaged just under eight (7.82) runs per contest and have smoked 24 homers in the last 12 games.

"Offensively, we knew it was just a matter of time,'' said Alex Cora in the aftermath of Sunday's bludgeoning. "Obviously, there were some guys who were scuffling (earlier in the season) -- Mookie, the bottom of the lineup. Now we're controlling the strike zone. Early in the season, I think we were expanding the zone. We're doing a pretty good of hitting fastballs and taking breaking balls off the plate. We're taking our walks and that's the key -- controlling the zone. We're getting there.''

Of particular note of late has been the team's ability to create big innings even after two outs. It happened in the first inning, when the team posted three runs. It happened again in the fifth, when they added two more and once again in the eighth, with two late insurance runs.

"I think the at-bats are a lot better,'' said Cora. "We're controlling the strike zone. We're staying in the middle of the field. We're not rolling over too much lately. A lot of our hits are to right and right-center and up the middle. That's very important. Early in the season, we were rolling over and a lot of ground balls were hit to the pull side, both righty and lefty. Now, we're staying through it. There's been a lot of quality at-bats from top to bottom.''

In particular, at the bottom. The Sox never worried about the top half of the batting order, knowing that Betts, Andrew Benintendi, J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts would eventually hit as they have before. But of late, the team has been getting contributions from the final three spots in the lineup, an area that at times last year resembled a black hole.

But Christian Vazquez now has multi-hit games in four of his last five games and has boosted his average to .278. Michael Chavis, who has often hit seventh, snapped out of an 0-for-19 funk with three hits Sunday and five RBI. Even Jackie Bradley Jr., whose batting average remains well below the Mendoza line, has shown signs of life lately, contributing an opposite-field double Friday night and added a two-run single up the middle on Saturday.

The lineup's resurgence comes after the starting rotation also self-corrected. Early in the year, the starters were digging early holes, and the hitters, as if guilty of trying to do too much, seemed to deepen the hole by not showing patient and chasing pitches out of the strike zone in an effort to make up lost ground.

So it stands to reason now that the rotation has stabilized -- an ERA 3.18 in the last 28 games -- the offense is similarly falling to place.

The two are not unrelated, argued J.D. Martinez, who supplied two homers and three RBI.

"I think the starting pitching is really kind of locked it in, and really settled into themselves,'' he said, "and I think offensively, we've done the same thing. To me, they both go hand-in-hand. Anytime you're out in the field and you get a quick inning, you're in and out, you're kind of back on offense, it's a different rhythm when you're hitting versus being out there for a long period of time. I've always said they go hand-in-hand, really.''

And now that one is fixed, the other is following suit.

Opponents beware.