After a long and frustrating homestand, the Red Sox began their second road trip of the season with a much-needed show of force.

Led by their burgeoning young core, the Boston bats clobbered 12 hits, including four home runs, en route to an 8-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Wilyer Abreu got Boston on the board immediately with a solo home run in the top of the first. The rookie outfielder’s first round-tripper of the season blasted off at 109.1 mph and soared 421 feet out of PNC Park. He finished the night 3-for-5, a triple shy of the cycle.

“We decided a week ago, like, this guy’s gonna play against righties, we have to play him,” Alex Cora told reporters. “There’s a reason he’s here. He’s a good defender, he’s a good baserunner, but he’s a good hitter, and the more he plays, the better he feels.”

“He started everything tonight,” Rob Refsnyder told NESN’s Jahmai Webster. “Young guys were swinging it.”

Two batters later, Triston Casas followed with a solo shot of his own. His sixth home run of the year, a 413-foot opposite-field blast, gave Boston a 2-0 lead.

“Triston’s our catalyst,” Refsnyder said.

After blowing multiple early leads during the homestand, the Red Sox didn’t rest on their laurels after taking an immediate 2-0 lead. Ceddanne Rafaela quickly tacked on the third run when he reached on a fielder’s choice and drove in Bobby Dalbec, who’d doubled to snap an 0-for-33 skid that dated back to last Sept. 26, in the top of the second.

Back in the starting lineup for the first time this season, Refsnyder belted a two-run homer, scoring Abreu to put Boston up 5-0 in the fifth. An inning later, Rafaela’s first home run of the season made increased the lead to 6-0.

For good measure, the Red Sox tacked two more in the top of the seventh. Refsnyder led off with a double, and was joined on the bases soon after by Masataka Yoshida and Dalbec, who drew two-out walks. Enmanuel Valdez torched a double to right, scoring two before Dalbec was tagged out at home to end the inning.

They had opportunities to do further damage; they were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left seven men on base, but eight runs proved more than enough.

Buoyed by the bats, Brayan Bello escaped a few early baserunners, then breezed through the later innings in his fifth and longest start of the season. The ever-increasing lead served as motivation for the Sox starter to keep shutting down the home team, as well.

“Every time they scored a run, I was trying to talk to myself, saying ‘next inning, I need to keep it at zero, I need to get my guys back to hit,’ and that was my mindset,” he told reporters via translator Carlos Villoria Benitez.

“Went out there to compete every inning,” Bello said. “This is the kind of pitcher that I am.”

After working around baserunners in each of the first three frames, the right-hander set the Pirates down 1-2-3 in each of his remaining three. “As the game went on, I felt more stronger,” he said, admitting that he felt he’d been ‘battling’ in the first inning. “After the second inning, I felt very good.”

Bello exited after six shutout innings, charged with one hit, two walks, and seven strikeouts, including four among his last six batters faced. The Red Sox starting rotation, already the best in baseball by far, is down to a minuscule 1.72 ERA.

“I kept attacking the hitters today,” he said. “I felt like all my pitches today were working very good, and that was the key.”

Bello relied heavily on his changeup (42%), which was in game-changing form. “I was able to locate the changeup way better than any of my previous outings,” he said. “I feel like today was the best that I could handle the changeup.”

“He pitched well, and today, the changeup was good, the slider was OK, and he used his fastball when he needed to,” Cora said. “Kept them off-balance, we scored some runs early on, we were able to breathe, you know? He was amazing.”

Though still only 24 years old, Bello is becoming more confident as he continues honing his craft.

“His changeup is a good one, and game-planning-wise, he knew what he wanted to do,” Cora said. “Velocity was up, too. It was 96 (mph) and he was able to use his changeup a lot, but at the same time, kept them honest with the fastball.”

The team’s growing pains were still evident, but significantly less so than they were throughout the first homestand at Fenway. Starting at shortstop for the second time this season, Rafaela made the team’s 21st error, but it was the defense’s only miscue of the outing. Yoshida also made an unnecessary first out in the top of the second when he led off with a single and got tagged out at home, trying to score from first on Dalbec’s double.

Cora said it was one of his team’s most complete games of the year thus far, he wasn’t willing to be effusive in praise when there was still an error on the board.

“Bobby played great. Bobby’s one of the best defensive third basemen in the organization, if not the best,” Cora lauded. “We made plays… (but) if we’re gonna pull this off, we can’t be happy with making an error today, that’s the way I see it.”

In the bottom of the ninth, Cora was able to change one player’s life. With a call to the bullpen, 31-year-old Cam Booser, who’d spent over a decade in and out of professional baseball, took the mound for his Major League debut. Despite giving up a leadoff triple and a run, he got Andrew McCutchen swinging for his first big-league strikeout and closed out the win. After, he sat in the dugout, tears running down his cheeks, clutching the baseball.

“Good team win,” Refsnyder said.

“It was a good day,” Cora agreed.