Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Jackie Bradley Jr. have propelled the Red Sox to first place in the American League East and restored the Joy of Sox for fans from Maine to Malibu, Calif., after back-to-back basement finishes. They form the foundation of the Next Great Red Sox Teams, plural.

We’ve seen the Red Sox climb out of the AL East cellar into the bright light of contention before. It happened in 2013, a brilliant baseball comet of a season that flashed across the sky.

What’s different about this season is that with this homegrown triumvirate of hitters, the Sox’ success looks sustainable, not ephemeral. These three looked prime to take the Boston baseball baton from David Ortiz and run with it.

Every night they’re wowing us with another feat, from Betts’s home run binge in Baltimore to the hitting streaks of Bradley (29 games) and Bogaerts (26 games and counting).

If they can be kept together and the Sox’ fecund farm system delivers its Benintendis, Moncadas, and Espinozas, the Sox possess the potential for a wide window of contention like the Atlanta Braves of the 1990s or the New York Yankees of the late ’90s and aughts. Optimistic? Sure. Unrealistic? No.

Who knows how this season is going to end for the Sox? This team tramples pitchers like bulls storming the streets of Pamplona. The Red Sox are the runaway leaders in runs, averaging 5.98 per game at the start of play Thursday. But the starting rotation is unstable and unreliable, and the bullpen looks a late-inning reliever short after Carson Smith was lost for the year to Tommy John surgery.

President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has some roster redecorating to do.

But this team represents the shared vision of his predecessors — former general manager Theo Epstein and his lieutenant-turned-replacement Ben Cherington.

Both wanted to tune out the noise that goes with Red Sox baseball and focus on harmonizing homegrown players.

The Red Sox can field a lineup that has seven of the eight position players as homegrown products, and that’s not counting Hanley Ramirez, a celebrated Sox prospect who was traded to the Marlins, at first base.

A lineup with Christian Vazquez at catcher, Dustin Pedroia at second, Bogaerts at shortstop, Travis Shaw at third base, Blake Swihart in left field, Bradley in center field, and Betts in right field is more organic than the rooftop garden at Fenway Park.

On May 20, against Cleveland, the Red Sox had that alignment with Ramirez at first and Clay Buchholz on the mound. That meant every player in the field had been developed by the Red Sox.

Given the Red Sox’ desultory record in free agency and well-publicized past aversion to paying players over 30, this route is cost-effective and advisable.

Instead of buying star players, produce your own.

Epstein talked about this guiding principle in an interview with Dan Shaughnessy in 2012 while discussing his departure for the Chicago Cubs, who have let Epstein execute his vision unfettered by TV ratings and marketing ploys.

“We joked about it all the time in the [Red Sox] front office,’’ said Epstein. “We’d say, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could just say, screw free agency altogether. We’re going with a purely home-grown lineup. We’re going with old-school, Branch Rickey-style, pre-free agency, pre-draft whatever?’ ’’

Theo added, “We kind of clung to that in the back of our minds, knowing it was impossible, recognizing that there was an inherent tension between that approach and bigger business. I kind of kick myself for letting my guard down and giving into it . . .’’

Cherington adhered to that gospel. He ferociously guarded the team’s farm system, perhaps to an ossified fault.

But his patience is paying off now.

Cherington isn’t a martyr. He made some major miscalculations — signing Rusney Castillo, thinking Ramirez could play left field, failing to recognize that Pablo Sandoval did his hardest hitting with a fork, trading John Lackey for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly.

However, this is the Red Sox team he always wanted to build, and these are the better days ahead he promoted through the last two painful seasons.

Bogaerts, Betts, and Bradley are the roses that arose from the cracked concrete.

It would be disingenuous to say the Sox faced a binary choice between suffering through two last-place seasons and not having Bogaerts, Betts, and Bradley as the next generation. But the two are somewhat related.

Perhaps the Red Sox don’t let Bogaerts work through his growing pains at shortstop if they don’t finish last in 2014. That year they bailed on him playing short after less than two months to bring back Stephen Drew.

Now, at age 23, Bogaerts is an above-average defensive shortstop who provides premium offense. Fangraphs had his defensive runs above average at 5.9, sixth-best in baseball. Bogaerts entered Thursday leading the AL in batting average (.347) and multi-hit games (24 ).

Bradley, who hit .198 in 127 games in 2014, doesn’t get another shot as a big league regular if the Sox aren’t circling the drain last season. (The same goes for Shaw, who laid the foundation to seize the third base job last season.)

JBJ entered Thursday third in the majors in OPS (1.010) and fourth in the AL in batting average (.331).

The 23-year-old Betts is the only one who hasn’t suffered a considerable setback at the big league level.

Mookie is a marvel.

Betts tied a major league record by hitting five home runs in a span of seven at-bats, including a three-homer game Tuesday. He became the first player to homer in each of the first two innings of consecutive games.

Entering Thursday, Betts led the majors in runs and trailed only Ortiz in total bases.

Given their ages, the production from Betts and Bogaerts is historic. And the 26-year-old Bradley isn’t exactly eligible for an AARP card.

The future is now for the Sox, and it’s a sustainable one.

Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.