Red Sox pound Angels, 9-1

BOSTON — It’s a great game plan, hitting four home runs every night. The Red Sox should do it as often as they can.

They got homers from Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Christian Vazquez and J.D. Martinez in smashing the Angels Tuesday night, 9-1. The Yankees were pounding the Phillies at the same time so New York retains its one-half game lead in the American League East.

Boston is, since the start of the 2011 season, 36-2 when its batters hit four home runs or more. That the Sox did it against the Angels on Tuesday night was not entirely unexpected given the quality of the opponent and its starting pitcher, John Lamb.

Lamb allowed five runs, three earned, in 1 2/3 innings. His career record is 2-13, his career earned run average 6.25.

The victory made the Red Sox 4-0 versus the Angels this season and they have outscored Anaheim, 36-4.

Boston had 14 hits including six doubles and the four homers. The Sox’ offensive explosion made it an easy night for David Price, who improved to 9-5 with the win. He worked the first six innings.

While No. 7 hitter Rafael Devers had an unproductive evening, Vazquez and Bradley combined to go 5 for 8 below him with two doubles, two homers and five RBIs.

Bradley was 3 for 4 with four RBIs and missed the cycle by a triple. He is 7 for 10 in his last three games, has three hits in back to back games for the first time in almost a year, or since June 29-30, 2017, and had four RBIs in a game for the first time since May 30, 2017.

“I keep repeating myself,” Alex Cora said of Bradley. “He’s been swinging the bat well for three weeks.”

The key to this latest offensive surge by the center field can be summed up in a word — simplify.

“There was a lot of stuff going on for like 2 1/2 weeks,” Cora said. “First there was the leg kick, then he went to the toe tap, which I thought at the moment was good for him — he was really on time — then he went back to the leg kick.

“I think it was in Baltimore, I talked to him a little bit and said, ‘What’s going on? Is it the leg kick or the toe tap? We have to be consistent, and he said, I think we’ve found it. I said, don’t deviate it from it…he’s seeing the breaking ball a lot better and he’s been able to stay with the fastball.”

Price is 7-1 with a 2.72 earned run average in his last nine starts. The Red Sox have won eight of them.

He allowed the Angels’ only run, a solo homer by Chris Young in the third. It was a fly ball that just dropped over the left field wall, the kind of ball the Red Sox expected him to hit when they signed him as a free agent three years ago.

They just didn’t expect him to do it for an opposing team.

Young’s homer came with one out and was part of Price’s only real difficulty of the night. The Angels eventually loaded the bases with two out, bringing Albert Pujols to the plate with a chance to make it a 5-5 game.

He grounded out to third.

“It was good, to get two outs and single, single, walk,” Price said, “and face Pujols in that situation. They’re one swing away from tying the game at that point against a guy that’s swung the bat against me really well, hit a lot of balls hard. To get that ground ball was great.”

Betts’ homered on the first pitch of the Red Sox first. It was his 20th of the season and first-ever into a Fenway bullpen. It was the 98th of Betts’ career and he should soon hit triple figures. When that happens, he will be just the 30th Red Sox player to hit 100 or more homers in a Boston uniform.

Bradley hit one into the Monster seats in the third, Vazquez lined his third of the season over the Monster in the fifth and Martinez hit his 24th of the year in the sixth.

He needs one more to be the first Boston batter ever with 25 homers before July. With the Angels in town for two more games, there is a good chance that will happen.