What a weekend of baseball in Boston. Worlds collided as the Chicago Cubs, the defending champs, invaded Fenway Park for three games against the Red Sox.

It was only April, but there was electricity in the air at the ballpark and throughout the city all weekend long. Thousands of Cubs fans descended on Boston and infiltrated Fenway, waving their flags and celebrating every run the visitors scored.

We’ve never seen anything like it. The roar for Saturday’s Cubs win was as loud as anything heard while the Sox won games on Friday and Sunday. This was regular-season baseball at its best.

“It felt like the World Series,” said Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez.

It wasn’t, of course. It was an early-season series between two teams battling to stay above .500. They’re also two teams predicted by many to win their respective pennants.

On Saturday night the two organizations were well represented at the “Hot Stove, Cool Music” concert to benefit the Red Sox Foundation, Cubs Charities, and the Foundation to Be Named Later. As Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder sang on stage, the 2004 and 2016 World Series trophies were being passed around. One ended an 86-year curse while the other put an end to 108 years of frustration.

Indeed, it’s a new world order in Major League Baseball. The Sox and Cubs – long connected by decades of suffering – are now model franchises expected to contend for years.

Living up to expectations is never easy. It’s a long way to October and the Sox have issues to deal with if they hope to return to the playoffs. They’ve been trying to get by without David Price, who faced batters in a sort-of live batting practice Saturday. It was the first time he faced hitters of any sort since February. He threw 30 pitches. He is still a long way from pitching in a major league game.

The Sox can’t survive with a premier pitcher like Price out for the whole season. They need him back. Yet their pitching has been getting by, thanks in large part to a bullpen that has been surprisingly good.

The offense lacked power through April, to the point where Xander Bogaerts openly talked about how much the team misses David Ortiz. That’s not something you want to hear a month into the season.

So it was a welcome sign that the Sox opened up for 15 runs over the weekend. Boston had scored a mere 13 runs in the previous seven games. That’s not enough to win games, even if the pitching is outstanding.

Over the weekend Hanley Ramirez hit two of the longest homers we’ve seen at Fenway Park this season. The Sox have been one of the league’s best hitting teams by average, but you need to back that hitting up with a little power. Perhaps the emergence of Ramirez will ignite power in the rest of the lineup. Mookie Betts, Dustin Pedroia and Bogaerts have combined to hit two home runs. You would expect that to change.

The Sox hit the fewest homers in all of baseball in April. They also did that last year, but finished the season with a respectable 208 homers and went on to win the division. No reason to think they can’t do it again. If they do, we could have visions of another Boston-Chicago party dancing in our heads in October.

Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

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