BOSTON -- Having a 4-2 lead with four innings to play vs. the Boston Red Sox offense is far from comfortable, so St. Louis decided to open things up in a big way, sending a season-high 12 batters to the plate in the top of the sixth inning.

When the dust settled, the Cardinals put up six runs, allowing them to cruise to an 11-2 victory, with their most runs at Fenway Park since they won 12-3 in Game 4 of the 1946 World Series.

The top of the sixth started innocently enough with Nolan Gorman striking out before the next eight batters reached base.

Tyler O’Neill got the party going by launching a Hansel Robles offering a Statcast-projected 410 feet into the center-field bleachers.

From there, it was one base at a time as the next seven batters found themselves on first base by way of a single, a walk or an error.

Paul Goldschmidt and Tommy Edman each collected two-run singles in the frame.

Gorman was saddled with two of the three outs, though he had already put his stamp on the game earlier.

“It was a great run for us,” said the rookie. “I got the opportunity to have two at-bats in one inning. That just means your team is doing really well. Obviously, it sucks making two outs in the same inning, but your team’s doing really well. It was fun to be a part of.”

“This is the depth that we’ve talked about,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “A lot of guys are putting it together at the right time. … When those guys all contribute, this is what they are capable of doing.”

St. Louis built its initial lead behind a two-run home run from Nolan Arenado (2-for-4, with three RBIs) in the first inning, his 13th of the season and second in as many days, and a 440-foot moonshot to dead center off of the bat of Gorman in the fourth inning.

It was the fourth time that the Cardinals have struck for three home runs at Fenway Park, all of them coming in the month of June -- 6/12/03, 6/20/08 and 6/21/08.

“I knew I hit it pretty well,” said Gorman of his 4th home run this season. “I’ve got some good power, so I thought it had a chance. … I got a good pitch to hit and was able to barrel it.”

Starter Dakota Hudson ran into some trouble in the fourth, walking three straight Boston batters, though yielding only one run and working his way out of things.

“That’s a fun lineup,” Marmol said of the Red Sox. “They’ve got some dudes that can hit. You don’t want to give them anything from the sense of walks, errors.”

Hudson earned his fifth win of the season after going five innings, striking out three and allowing two runs on four hits and five walks.

“I got outside of my skillset a little bit with a couple of small misses,” Hudson said. “It’s just about trying to eliminate and limit the damage from there.”

Coming on in relief in the sixth inning, Zack Thompson shut the potent Boston lineup down, recording nine outs on nine batters faced, four by way of K’s, in a very impressive three innings of work.

“Make them earn every single pitch,” said Marmol of Thompson. “That’s exactly what [Thompson] did. That was incredibly impressive.”

“I knew our team was going to hit, we came out hot today,” said Hudson. “Thank goodness we’ve got the guys on our team that we do. You saw Thompson come in and really pick up our bullpen.”

The two teams return to Fenway Park for a 1:35 p.m. ET/12:35 CT Father’s Day matinee to wrap up the three-game series.