Bayern Munich routed Hamburger SV 8-0, and Bas Dost's injury-time winner gave Wolfsburg a 5-4 victory at Bayer Leverkusen as the Bundesliga saw a deluge of goals Saturday.
Thomas Mueller, Arjen Robben and Mario Goetze all scored two each for Bayern, with Robert Lewandowski claiming another and substitute Franck Ribery scoring on his return from a right thigh injury.
Second-placed Wolfsburg kept pace, eight points behind Bayern, with Dost's winning fourth goal. Leverkusen had come from a three-goal deficit at halftime to tie the game thanks to Son Heung-min's hat trick and 72nd-minute equalizer from Karim Bellarabi. Leverkusen finished with 10 men after Emir Spahic earned a second yellow card in the 82nd.
"Unfortunately we weren't able to claim the point, not for the point's sake but for the morale it would have given us," Leverkusen coach Roger Schmidt said.
Granit Xhaka scored an injury-time winner for Borussia Moenchengladbach to beat Cologne 1-0 in the Rhine derby, bottom side Stuttgart lost 2-1 to a late goal at Hoffenheim, and Werder Bremen defeated Augsburg 3-2 to consolidate eighth place with its fifth consecutive win. Bremen was bottom when the run started in December.
Eintracht Frankfurt hosted Schalke in the late game.
Mueller got Bayern off the mark with a penalty in the 21st and Goetze pounced to make it 2-0 off a rebound two minutes later after Jaroslav Drobny saved Mueller's initial shot.
Robben maintained his rich vein of form with a wonderful curled strike in off the left post after eluding three Hamburg defenders in the 36th. It was his 13th league goal of the season.
The Dutch winger claimed his next two minutes into the second half, shooting a rare goal with his right foot when he beat Drobny at his near post.
"It was a great surprise for all of us," Bastian Schweinsteiger joked.
Schweinsteiger set up Mueller to make it 5-0 with a curler inside the right post in the 55th, one minute before Mueller set up Robert Lewandowski's first goal of 2015.
Ribery scored on a rebound in the 69th and Goetze completed Hamburg's humiliation in the 88th.
"We lost a game, we shouldn't mourn. We need to get over it and show our true face (in the next game) against Hoffenheim," Hamburg coach Josef Zinnbauer said.
Schweinsteiger was back in his favored role in defensive midfield after Xabi Alonso pulled out with a thigh injury.
"I play that position with the national team. I like playing there. It was wonderful," Schweinsteiger said.
Bayern's Holger Badstuber started the game to make his comeback from a thigh injury sustained on Sept. 13. The Germany defender had been out for 20 months before that with a knee injury.
In Leverkusen, Dost opened the scoring with a diving header in the sixth minute and Naldo made it 2-0 with a free kick in the 17th. Dost claimed his second by getting the outside of his boot to Kevin de Bruyne's cross in the 29th.
Schmidt responded by making all three substitutions at the break. Son pulled one back in the 57th, despite Wolfsburg protests that he kicked the ball out of Diego Benaglio's hands, and then scored again five minutes later.
One minute later, Dost completed his hat trick by connecting with the end of Ricardo Rodriguez's cross, only for Son to answer by completing his own hat trick four minutes after that.
Bellarabi leveled the score in the 72nd, but Leverkusen was holding on after Spahic's sending off and Dost sealed the win in the 93rd.
"It was a crazy game," Dost said. "The first half was brilliant but we need to forget the second. We didn't play football anymore. But still we scored five goals in an away game. I'm happy about that. We're going for the Champions League."