In storming out to a stunning 17-2 start to the season, entering Saturday night’s game in Oakland, Boston’s hitters have pushed more than six runs per game across the plate, slugging an astonishing .497 as a team and hitting nearly a home run per game.

By Brian MacPherson For The Providence Journal

Red Sox principal owner John Henry made a clear request. Manager Alex Cora has delivered.

In storming out to a stunning 17-2 start to the season, entering Saturday night’s game in Oakland, Boston’s hitters have pushed more than six runs per game across the plate, slugging an astonishing .497 as a team and hitting nearly a home run per game. There’s no way to overstate the transformation of a lineup that was power-starved a year ago — and it’s not just the addition of J.D. Martinez that has done it.

 “We’re driving the ball,” Cora said after a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim earlier this week, “and we’re not striking out.”

 Indeed, the power numbers speak to the way the Red Sox are driving the ball — and they’re doing that while striking out in only 16.3 percent of their at-bats, the lowest mark in Major League Baseball.

 (A hefty chunk of those strikeouts belong to Martinez — which always was part of the deal with acquiring him.)

 Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi both have more walks than strikeouts so far this season. Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Eduardo Nunez all rank among the American League hitters most difficult to strike out.

 “We obviously have a good offensive approach,” Bradley told reporters on Friday night after he hit a three-run home run in Boston’s eighth straight win.

 Most noteworthy, however, is the change in the way Red Sox hitters are attacking the strike zone.

 It’s a fulfillment of the promise Cora and Henry both made in spring training, a promise that stemmed from Henry’s belief that his team’s power shortage last season stemmed in large part from passivity at the plate. The team’s willingness to let hitting coach Chili Davis walk away seemed to come come directly from that belief.

 “We would have had significant power last year if we had a different approach,” Henry told reporters as spring training began. “That’s my opinion. … I didn't think we were nearly aggressive enough, and I think our approach was lacking for a good part of the season."

 Under Cora and new hitting coach Tim Hyers, a former Boston scout and minor-league hitting instructor, the Red Sox aren’t swinging more just to swing more. They’re not swinging any more at pitches outside the strike zone than they did a year ago.

 But a team that ranked 30th in Major League Baseball a year ago in swinging at pitches in the strike zone (62.3 percent) has flipped that on its head. Boston’s hitters rank second in Major League Baseball in swinging at pitches in the strike zone (70.1 percent) — and only a narrow second at that.

 After Boston polished off a Los Angeles team that had been 13-3 before the Red Sox arrived, Cora pointed in part to his team’s ability to do damage with two strikes, as Cora’s Houston Astros did a year ago.

 It’s true that, entering play on Friday, Red Sox hitters led the majors with a .365 slugging percentage with two strikes — including 21 doubles and nine home runs in fewer than 400 plate appearances.

 But Boston wasn’t too shabby when hitting with two strikes a year ago, either. The Astros led the major leagues in slugging percentage with two strikes last year, but the Red Sox ranked third. Their 140 doubles with two strikes were far and away the most of any team in baseball. Hitters like Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts both hit with relative comfort with two strikes, which Davis saw as being selective.

 The problem for the Red Sox was that hitters like Betts and Bogaerts got into too many two-strike counts.

 Now the Red Sox aren’t waiting around.

 Case in point: Mitch Moreland let the count get to two strikes in more than half of his at-bats last season. He had just three extra-base hits all season on the first pitch of an at-bat, including just one home run.

 So far this season, Moreland’s rate of letting the count get to two strikes is down to 40 percent — and he’s attacking the first pitch. The grand slam he hit on a first-pitch slider from Oakland reliever Emilio Pagan in Friday’s win at Oakland was the second first-pitch home run he’s hit — and the season is barely three weeks old.