OAKLAND, Calif. — No team dreams of having a .500 season. Athletes dream big. They think about championships and distancing themselves from the competition.

The Boston Red Sox entered Monday at .500 this season. And they are absolutely fine with that. It marked the first time since April 22 that they didn’t have a losing record. They crawled back from a season-low nine games under .500, winning 17 of their last 25 games, culminating with a sweep of the Oakland A’s over the weekend.

“We know we got ourselves in a bad spot,” Boston Manager Alex Cora said after Sunday’s win. “We know we have a good baseball team that has to keep working hard to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We’ve been playing good baseball the last three weeks.”

There’s no question the Red Sox are playing better baseball. It begins with the offense, which is finally performing at the level expected. The Sox are getting contributions throughout the lineup, a far cry from earlier this season when three hitters essentially carried the offense.

Now Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, and J.D. Martinez are getting help. Franchy Cordero hit the three-run homer that powered the Sox to a 5-2 win for the series sweep on Sunday. That came the day after everyone in the lineup had at least one hit in an 8-0 win.

Jarren Duran had three hits over those two games and has displayed the combination of power and speed that made him one of the team’s top prospects. The Red Sox are getting length from the lineup, and it’s no coincidence that they are now leading the American League in runs scored.

“We’ve still got holes,” said Cora, “but I think on a daily basis we feel very good about ourselves trying to win on a nightly basis.”

The Red Sox scored three runs in their final at-bat in the first three games of the four-game winning streak they carried into Anaheim on Monday. Tacking on those late runs takes pressure off the Boston bullpen, and uses up their opponent’s relievers — meaning the Sox face an overworked bullpen later in the series.

The Sox have also gotten strong efforts from their starting rotation.

There are still plenty of things for Red Sox fans to be concerned about. They have lost every series against AL East opponents this season, and are only 13-14 at Fenway Park.

But those are concerns for another week. The Sox don’t play at home until June 14, and will try to keep the good times rolling through the week out west.

The Red Sox are scheduled to play four games in Anaheim. The Angels entered the series with an 11-game losing streak that dropped them behind Boston in the standings.

That’s right. The Red Sox began the first full week of June holding onto one of the playoff spots in the American League thanks to the Angels free fall and a newly expanded playoff field. If the season were to end now, the Sox would be getting ready for postseason baseball.

Of course, the season doesn’t end anytime soon. We are only one-third of the way through the season. Which is why we shouldn’t get too caught up in standings in early June.

It’s also why we shouldn’t have overreacted to the team’s slow start. The Red Sox are a flawed team, but just about every other team in the AL is equally flawed. Or worse.

For now, you can call the Sox exactly what they are. A .500 team. Considering where they’ve been, they will accept that gladly.

Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. He is a graduate of Lewiston High School.

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