On a night when the Red Sox scored six runs against one of the better pitchers in the game and totaled eight runs, the offense might deserve a little more attention this weekend than it will get. Especially this weekend. 

Many expect Fenway to be a zoo on Friday, and for good reason. Manny Ramirez will be gracing Yawkey Way for the first time since famously going back to the park the night he was traded on July 31, 2008. 

Anyone in the Red Sox clubhouse who was around for part of Manny’s tenure in Boston will speak highly of what he brought to the plate. Mike Lowell remembers watching from the on-deck circle as Ramirez took then-Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez deep in Game 2 of the ALDS on a fastball, a walkoff blast when Lowell “would have bet the house” a slider was coming. David Ortiz added that Ramirez’ prowess at the plate was a “gift he got from God.” Nobody will say a bad thing about his bat. After all, Ramirez has more homers with the Red Sox than any active player and fifth most in the history of the franchise. 

“[He was a] great hitter and did some remarkable things on the field,” manager Terry Francona said. “I know sometimes, especially early, there were times when he would make an out and I would sit there and think, 'How did he do that? How did he make an out?' That's not fair. 

“He was so good, he was so dangerous that sometimes when he made the out, you were like, 'That shouldn't have happened.' That's not fair, but that's how good he was.”

Ramirez has been the face of many scary offenses in his time, and his tenure in Boston was no different. One could argue that any offense with Ramirez in it is automatically somewhat potent, but in Boston (much like in Cleveland) he had damn good hitters to overshadow. Whether stealing the thunder of Nomar Garciaparra, David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis or the number of players with career years in ’03, Ramirez was the player people thought of when they thought Red Sox hitting. 

It seemed that was always the stumbling block when fans had their monthly episodes of being fed up with the slugger. With any wishes to move Ramirez — whether brought on by a request from Manny himself or upset fans — the general public’s first thought was the same: Nobody wanted to know what the Red Sox offense would be like without Manny Ramirez. 

Time has passed since the July ’08 day when Manny made his seemingly inevitable exit from Boston, and the answer to the question of how the offense would fare is apparent. 

It’s better.

Though the Red Sox have never replaced Ramirez with a single player anywhere near as feared as he was in his time in Boston, the offense in the two and a half seasons since he was traded — on what has since become a “run-prevention” team, mind you — has statistically been an improvement over what it was in the last two and a half seasons with him in it.

From the beginning of the 2006 season to the ’08 trade deadline, the Red Sox scored an average of 5.14 runs per game, which ranked fourth in the American League behind the Yankees, Tigers and Rangers. Ramirez drove in 379 runs for the Sox in that span. 

Since then, the game has changed. For whatever reason, it has become less of an offense-dominated game, as is evidenced by the decreased runs scored for the AL as a whole. Yet despite it becoming a less offensive game and the Red Sox making pitching and defense a priority and doing it all without Manny, the Red Sox offense actually has gotten statistically better while the rest of the league has trended the other way. After having the fourth-most productive offense in the aforementioned period with Ramirez, the Sox have jumped up to No. 2 in runs per game in the AL. 

After Thursday night’s game, the Red Sox trailed only the Yankees in that category and have scored 5.48 runs per game since July 31 of ’08. It’s a pretty remarkable idea to wrap one’s head around. Manny Ramirez left a team, was never effectively replaced (one could make an argument for Jason Bay, but he didn’t have the same you-can’t-pitch-to-this-guy impact on a pitcher’s preparations as Ramirez), yet the offense that he was supposed to have left worse off is one of only five offenses (Angels, Twins, Rays, Blue Jays) to have gotten better since he was shipped to LA. 

Yes, Manny did leave, and people haven’t forgotten. He’s caught every bit of flack one could catch -- he talked his way out of town, he quit on his team, etc. There isn’t a sporting cliché for “was a jerk” that hasn’t been applied to Manny Ramirez around Boston. But though he did leave, the Red Sox’ offensive production didn’t go anywhere. 

Alex Speier contributed to this story.