MLB

Boston bashers getting offensive

Usually, when John Lackey takes the mound for the Red Sox, the offense goes home. Six times this season, Lackey lost when the Red Sox were shut out. His 3.77 run support per nine innings was the fifth lowest mark in baseball.

But the Red Sox have been on a roll lately. A real roll. A ridiculous roll.

“[Reliever] Craig Breslow was joking with me,” Lackey said. “He said, ‘Not even Lackey can stop our offense today.’ ”

Nope, Lackey couldn’t. And certainly neither could the Yankees, who were lit up for more double-digit totals in runs and hits as the Red Sox slugged their way to a 13-9 victory Saturday, pounding out 14 more hits and four more homers, including two by Mike Napoli on Saturday at Yankee Stadium.

“Sometimes you’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ because what we’re doing now is pretty crazy,” said Napoli, who has battered Yankees pitching in the three games for seven hits in 12 at-bats, including three homers — the two Saturday and a grand slam Friday.

“[Napoli is] in a great place right now,” manager John Farrell said.

Actually, virtually every member of the Red Sox is in a pretty good spot. Boston has scored at least nine runs in four straight games — 54 runs total — slugging 17 homers in those four outings. Before they started picking on the Yankees, and especially the Bombers’ bullpen, they belted the Tigers for 20 runs and 19 hits, including eight homers, Wednesday. In the three games against the Yankees, the Red Sox are 45-of-125 (.360) with nine home runs.

“We’re trying to win every game. We’ve put ourselves in a situation where we are right now we don’t have to scoreboard watch. We kind of control our own destiny,” said Jonny Gomes, who had one of Boston’s homers Saturday.

The other blast came off the bat of 20-year-old shortstop phenom Xander Bogaerts, whose fifth-inning drive went an estimated 450 feet, landing behind the bullpen. Perhaps even more remarkable, Bogaerts felt a cramp in his leg as he swung.

“I got a cramp when I hit it. I winced. When I hit it I went, ‘Aahhh.’ I wasn’t even paying attention to where I hit it. As I rounded the bases, with all the adrenaline it went away,” said Bogaerts, who added there was no “silent treatment” or “curtain call” after his first career homer.

Bogaerts also made, according to Lackey, a “sick” barehanded play on Robinson Cano in the fifth.

“Today was a glimpse of why people are so high on him,” Farrell said.

“I wasn’t doing that at 20,” Gomes said of Bogaerts’ power display.

For two straight nights, Boston broke the Yankees’ hearts. One strike away from defeat in the first game of the latest installment of Armageddon Now, the Red Sox rallied to win, forcing a blown save on Yankees icon Mariano Rivera in the process. Then on Friday, they fought back from a five-run seventh inning deficit to transform the Yankees bullpen into oatmeal and win by four runs.

The Red Sox are 30 games over .500. They have a good-luck charm with a 3-foot cigar store Native American statue, bought by Jake Peavy on a recent road trip, a talisman that travels with them everywhere.

Plus, they have an offense that even made a winner of Lackey on Saturday.