In the middle of Sunday night's loss to the Yankees, Alex Cora made a note for himself: It was time to make some lineup changes.\n\n\"We haven't been great offensively since we went to Oakland,\" the Red Sox manager explained. \"And I just felt like moving people around would probably relax a few guys.\"
\n\nThe relaxed, reshuffled Red Sox performed about as well as they possibly could on Monday, blitzing the Blue Jays for 11 early runs in a 13-4 win at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, N.Y. Boston posted an eight-run first inning for the first time since July 2, 2015 (at Toronto), washing away two-plus weeks of offensive futility.\n\nIn their previous dozen games, the Red Sox had scraped and scrounged for offense, averaging just 3.8 runs per game and falling well short of the lofty expectations placed on a lineup featuring three All-Stars.
\n\nAmong Cora's maneuvers Monday was the promotion of
\n\n\"I didn't think I got it,\" Duran said. \"I thought maybe over [the outfielder's] head for a double or something, but it felt good trotting the bases, feeling like I did something to help the team get some runs on the board early.\"\n\n
Consider that eight-run inning in the context of how the Red Sox fared over the three-game series against the Yankees this past weekend: Boston had just six runs on 15 hits (.172 batting average), with two home runs.\n\nThe Sox tacked on three more in Monday's second inning with a
\n\n \n\n\"The at-bats were really professional today,\" Cora said. \"We stayed in the zone, we did a lot of good things and hopefully we can continue tomorrow.\"\n\nCora didn't reveal whether he'll keep the lineup the same for Tuesday's game, but it's difficult to argue with the results of the new formula. In addition to helping some of his players relax, the skipper was hoping to \"get some traffic\" in front of
Martinez responded with a 4-for-4 night, including two doubles and a walk. That performance was somewhat muted, though, given Boston's six home runs (tying a season high).\n\nA trademark of this Red Sox season is that home runs are celebrated with a laundry cart joyride in the dugout. In Buffalo, however, the players had to improvise by dragging a cooler along the ground.\n\n\"There's some places that there's no cart,\" Cora said. \"I guess that's what they \\[used\\] today. We'll get back to it when we get home.\"\n\nThey'll head home Thursday, but first comes the goal of earning a series win against the Blue Jays. The Red Sox have now won each of their past four series openers, but they lost the previous three series.\n\nOf course, if the offense uses this 14-hit, 13-run outburst to get back on track, series wins should become the norm again for the American League East leaders. One day after