For perhaps the third time in the still-young 2011, the Red Sox offense single-handedly won the Hometowne Team a game as it put together nine runs to tie its season high in a 9-5 win over the Twins in Sunday’s matinee. Five runs ties for the second-most amount that Boston has allowed this season in a win.

Four of the top five hitters in the Red Sox lineup (Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz) had two hits or more with Ellsbury and Gonzalez each racketing up three hits of their own, tying season highs for both. Boston chased Minnesota starter and former Red Sox farmhand Carl Pavano after allowing 10 hits and seven earned runs over five innings of work.

It originally looked like Red Sox starter Daisuke Matsuzaka was going to be the Mr. Hyde version of himself after he allowed three earned runs on three hits and a walk in the first inning alone. However, the Japanese righty finally settled down as the game waned on and ended with a line of six innings pitched with five hits and four earned runs allowed and four strikeouts.

For more on what went right and what went wrong in Boston’s 9-5 win, see below.

WHAT WENT RIGHT FOR THE RED SOX

-Gonzalez didn’t need someone to give him presents to make it a memorable 29th birthday on Sunday, unless you count the pitches he received from Pavano as gift-wrapped. The Sox first baseman went 3-for-5 with a Monster home run and two RBI. The opposite-field shot was his second in three games after failing to hit one over the big green wall in his first 16 games at Fenway. For good measure, he threw in an extra wall-ball single in the seventh. Maybe those preseason notions about him being built for Fenway were right after all.

-Kevin Youkilis set the team season-high for runs scored and tied a career-high in that department when he crossed the plate four times, aka after every time he stepped up to bat, Sunday out of the cleanup spot. His 2-for-4 effort at the plate, in which he also tossed in an RBI on a fielder’s choice, further solidified his climb out his April doldrums. After hitting a measly .218 in the first month of the season, the third baseman has raised his average to a much healthier .256 in just six games.

-J.D. Drew entered the game with the least number of RBI among Red Sox players with at least 100 plate appearances with six. He changed that in his first two spots at the dish, plating home Youkilis in the second and third innings.

-Aside from the first inning (see below), the whole picture from Matsuzaka was fairly decent. A fourth-inning home run by Danny Valencia was the only stain after the opening frame. In fact, take away the first inning and Matsuzaka has the following line: 5 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 3 K. That being said. . .

WHAT WENT WRONG FOR THE RED SOX

-Matsuzaka struggled as only he can in the first frame. He threw 34 pitches, 19 of which were strikes. His three hits allowed in the first inning were as many as he had allowed in the six other first innings he’d been in this season combined. In all fairness, he was hurt by a Denard Span single that just barely plopped in front of Carl Crawford in left and another cue shot by Jason Kubel that missed being foul by mere inches. But regardless, the righty starter had a tough time finding a consistent rhythm from the game’s outset.

On a day when Red Sox manager Terry Francona had announced that he wanted to avoid pitching long-men Alfredo Aceves and Tim Wakefield, both of whom pitched over 4 1/3 innings on Friday, Matsuzaka needed to quell fears that this would another short outing from him, and for one inning at least, he didn’t do that.

-No need to panic, but reliever Matt Albers, who almost unexpectedly has been nothing short of stellar for the Sox in the early going with a 0.84 ERA coming into Mother’s Day, gave up just his second earned run of the season and first since April 22. His ERA nearly doubled – not a hyperbolic statement – to 1.46 on the season. That’s still good enough to lead all Boston hurlers in that category.