The Red Sox are enjoying their surprise stint at the top of the American League East so much that they don’t want it to end any time soon.

However, it would have ended on Wednesday night with a loss to the Blue Jays. But Boston didn’t come close to letting that happen.

Instead, the Sox protected their first-place turf with an impressive early outburst in which the first five batters of the game belted hits en route to a 7-3 victory at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Fla.

• Box score

Red-hot starting pitcher Garrett Richards was staked to a 5-0 lead before he even threw a pitch.

It was an impressive answer to the Jays drubbing the Sox, 8-0, in Tuesday’s opener of this three-game series.

“That’s part of our mindset as far as, ‘Win today. Worry about today, and we’ll get to tomorrow [later],’" said Richards. “The guys are just really locked in individually and as a whole. It’s really fun to be a part of, to be honest with you. We could get blown out last night and show up today and everybody thinks we’re going to win by 10. It’s a mindset. It’s an attitude. I think we’re in a good place right now.”

Make it 40 consecutive days that manager Alex Cora’s upstart squad -- predicted by most prognosticators to finish fourth in the division this season -- has been in sole possession of first.

“It’s important to win the series, and we have a chance to win it,” said Cora. “Not too many people thought we would be in first place for X amount of days during the season. That’s for other people to think about. Our thoughts are to give ourselves a chance to win the series. Now we do.”

Sometimes, that top spot in the standings has felt very tenuous, such as Wednesday, when the Red Sox took the field with a half-game lead over Toronto.

But just when the Red Sox seem like they are about to slip, they tend to tighten their grip.

“We have a really good team,” said Richards. “I think a lot of us have been saying that since the beginning, even in Spring Training when everybody kind of had us [written] off or said, ‘Hey, they’re not going to be that good.’ Before I even signed here, I looked at the roster, and you know, it was a no-brainer for me. This is a great team, we jell really well together.

“I’m having a lot of fun playing baseball, we’re having a lot of fun playing baseball. Obviously winning solves a lot of things, but this team very much just shows up every single day ready to win.”

Kiké Hernández (single), Alex Verdugo (homer), J.D. Martinez (homer), Xander Bogaerts (single) and Rafael Devers (double) came out firing in that first, and Jays righty Ross Stripling didn’t seem to even know what hit him.

It was the first time since Aug. 7, 2005, that the Red Sox have opened the first inning with five straight hits, and the fourth time in the 2000s they’ve accomplished that feat. Cora was the starting third baseman for Boston in that 2005 game.

As for the events of Wednesday, the offense added homers by Hernández and Christian Vázquez later in the night.

But after the first inning, the night was mostly about Richards, who had another strong outing, scattering seven hits and two runs while striking out five and inducing three double-play grounders over 6 2/3 innings.

“Overall a good game,” said Cora. “Garrett was amazing. It's not easy to pitch here. If I'm a pitcher and I see that first inning, yeah, I'm happy with the five runs, but you see the conditions and you're like, 'I'd better keep the ball down.'”

When Richards started the season by going 0-2 with a 6.48 ERA in his first four starts, it was easy to second-guess Boston for signing him to a one-year, $10 million contract with a 2022 option back in February.

Now, it feels more like the contract could wind up being a bargain. In his past five starts, Richards is 4-0 with a 2.27 ERA.