As far as John Farrell could tell, this was as close as the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, keeping-them-from-playing-baseball Red Sox had been to full strength since the start of the season.

The first week of the season felt like it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, less about baseball and more a medical thriller with a virus that wiped out a solid chunk of the Sox’ roster, forced the team to disinfect its clubhouse, and even left teams following their trail worried about catching whatever was left in their wake.

Before the Twins arrived in Detroit, they asked the Tigers to fumigate the visitors’ clubhouse after the Red Sox left on Monday.

But being able to write some of the team’s most important names on the lineup card Tuesday night gave Farrell some relief. Hanley Ramirez was back in the lineup after the stomach ailment knocked him out of four games. Xander Bogaerts was back at shortstop after traveling to Aruba following the death of his grandmother. And for the first time since March, lefthander Drew Pomeranz took the mound against big-league hitters.

Inching closer to having a healthy squad, the Sox scored a 8-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles in their return to Fenway. Pomeranz gave the Sox six-plus strong innings, allowing just one run on four hits with six strikeouts (his most since last August).

“The one thing I will say is that not anyone has made an excuse,’’ Farrell said before the game. “We’ve got to go out and play. No one outside of our walls cares about what we’re going through and we don’t care what others are going through.’’

The Sox were looking to gain some ground on the first-place Orioles at the start of a stretch of 15 of 16 games against American League East opponents.

The Sox banged out 15 hits with seven of the nine starters chipping in at least one. Christian Vazquez went 4 for 4 with a double, triple, two RBIs, and two runs, Andrew Benintendi tied a career high with three hits, also driving in a run, and Dustin Pedroia went 2 for 4 with four RBIs, extending his hitting streak to seven games.

“That’s good, kind of like the offense last year,’’ Bogaerts said. “Everyone’s pitching in and doing their part.’’

But Pomeranz set the tone. The expectations for the lefthander coming in were no different from any other starter, Farrell said. He was expected to throw between 90-100 pitches and threw a crisp 91 (55 strikes). The only trace of early trouble came in the second inning when he gave up a sharp single to Welington Castillo and a loud double to the gap in right-center to Trey Mancini with one out. But Pomeranz got out of a tight spot by getting Jonathan Schoop to pop out and J.J. Hardy to fly to center to end the inning. The two outs started a run of 12 straight batters retired by Pomeranz.

Runs were scarce early on, but the Sox struck first, capitalizing on a leadoff walk by Ramirez in the bottom of the second. A double off the left-field wall by Mitch Moreland (his fifth double in the last five games), made it second and third with no outs, and after Bogaerts struck out, Pablo Sandoval lined a sacrifice fly to left to push Ramirez across and give the Sox a 1-0 lead.

Pedroia gave Pomeranz a bit of cushion in the fifth, pushing Vazquez across with a sacrifice fly that made it 2-0.

Pomeranz faced one batter in the seventh, giving up a leadoff single to Chris Davis before Farrell took the ball from him. The Orioles managed to turn it into a run after Heath Hembree came on in relief. Hembree gave up a single to Castillo, the first batter he faced, to make it first and third. Then, after Hembree struck out Mancini, a ground ball by Schoop scored Davis.

But after they cut the deficit to 2-1, the Orioles gave the Sox gifts in the seventh. With one out and one on, Chris Young bounced a ball to Hardy at shortstop that should have started an inning-ending double play. Instead, Hardy bobbled it, never able to make the feed to second. The error made it first and third and started a domino effect.

Vazquez popped one up to shallow center that looked like the second out, but Schoop couldn’t get under it and it fell in for a single. Pedroia followed by shooting a single up the middle that plated Sandoval and Young, making it 4-1. Then Benintendi lined a single to right that scored Vazquez to give the Sox a 5-1 lead.

They added three in the eighth on a two-run single by Vazquez and an infield RBI single by Pedroia.

“We bunched a number of hits together late,’’ Farrell said. “We found some holes, we were given a gift out to extend an inning, but still the one thing that didn’t get away from us was the hustle down the line to get a couple of infield hits to extend an inning.’’

The victory made health feel like less of an issue.

“Everything happens for a reason,’’ Ramirez said. “That’s in the past now. We started off the homestand pretty good and just come back tomorrow and win the series.’’

Julian Benbow can be reached at jbenbow@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @julianbenbow.