First, a little transaction analysis. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Pablo Sandoval sat out last night’s game for liking pictures on Instagram during Wednesday’s game. Unfortunately, with Dustin Pedroia still sitting out with a knee injury, the Sox don’t exactly have a plethora of infielders waiting to jump in. In fact, the only option they really had was to bring Hanley in from left field for the night. Faced with that reality, whoever’s in charge of making those decisions (Cherington, I presume?) decided to call up Travis Shaw, the corner infielder from Pawtucket. For that to happen, though, Heath Hembree, he of the 8.53 ERA and five consecutive scoreless innings, had to be sent to the 15-day DL with “right shoulder inflammation.” Sounds like a load of codswallop to me.

At the beginning of the week, both Shaw (having been called up when Matt Barnes was sent down) and Jeff Bianchi had been on the active roster, but both were sent down to AAA in order to recall Robbie Ross, Jr. and activate Craig Breslow from the DL. I don’t know if I really have a point here, other than to note that it looks like the Sox were forced to game the system with Hembree’s DL stint. It’s not Wei-Yin Chen’s situation, but it’s something. Hopefully Breslow and Ross were worth it. At any rate, Shaw is now 0-7 in the majors this year, but he did make this play.

For the first three innings, the Red Sox and Braves traded unproductive innings. Actually, Boston went down in order. But Brock Holt, batting leadoff in Pedroia’s place, led off the 4th with his second triple in three games, and with one out, Big Papi (playing 1st base last night) hit the ball to the right side of the infield to drive Holt in to make it 1-0.

Give the Sox credit. They eventually got to a very good pitcher in Shelby Miller, not through any particularly explosive offense but by keeping up continuous pressure. After three consecutive singles to start the 6th inning, Ramirez grounded into a bases-loaded double play to plate an insurance run through non-ideal means. But the bottom half of the order didn’t roll over and die with two outs – Bogaerts drove in Betts with another single and hustled from first base to score on Alejandro De Aza’s double, forcing Miller out of the game.

Meanwhile, Buchholz, who’d been cruising to this point, gave up a single and a walk with 2 outs in the bottom half of the inning. He then forced the Braves into two consecutive ground balls to the mound, but unluckily, the first one was a high chopper that left Clay with no play, and the second one, well…he managed to give up two runs on that one. Great ERA preservation move though.

Like Bogaerts in the previous inning, Holt managed to score from first on a double in the top of the 7th. Speed really does kill sometimes.

Tommy Layne came in for the hold (probably a combination of Tazawa’s workload and effectiveness kept him out) and Koji came in for a clean save. Well done boys. But you’re gonna have to play like that for a long time if you even want to scrape .500 again.

Notes:

• Sandy Leon received the first intentional walk of his major league career, bringing Buchholz to the plate in the 5th.
• Shades of Pedey.

So the Sox won today. Everyone’s making a big deal about Brock Holt hitting for the cycle. They should, too, it was cool. First one for the Red Sox since John Valentin!

I just can’t muster up any enthusiasm about it. It’s not you, Brock, it’s me. I’m still too bummed out for one win to turn my spirits around. But hey, this isn’t about me, it’s about our hundreds, nay, thousands of readers! So I’ll soldier on just for you.

There’s really nothing for me to complain about here. Every player on the team collected a hit, and six of Boston’s nine batters had a multi-hit game. There were nine total extra-base hits, including three triples. Mookie Betts was a home run away from the cycle himself. It was an offensive explosion. It just feels too good to be true.

I’m gonna be pessimistic real quick here for you: the 1st inning started out with a flurry of success – back-to-back doubles (Holt and Betts), a walk (Ortiz), a single (Bogaerts), only to be followed by perhaps the worst possible result: Sandoval grounded into a double play, scoring a run, and Napoli inevitably struck out.

By the time the Braves tied it up during Wade Miley’s only shaking inning of his outing, I was ready to call off the season again. I’m so sorry that I’m the way I am.

But in the sixth, the Sox shut me up by capitalizing on Mookie Betts’ leadoff triple with a pair of singles and a pair of doubles, driving in three runs and making the score 5-2, Boston.

My boy Junichi Tazawa came in when Miley got into one last spot of trouble in the 6th and ended the inning without incident. At that point, Holt hit his solo home run to come within one hit (a triple, obviously) of a cycle and extend the lead by a run.

In the eighth inning, against some guy called Sugar Ray Marimon (is the name Sugar Ray always cool? Probably), the rest of the Sox order got to work in order to get Brock Holt one last at-bat, succeeding and plating two more runs along the way. Holt capitalized on the opportunity, sending a ball deep to the triangle to carve out a little slice of the Red Sox history book for himself.

Koji came in and gave up a couple runs, which is pretty standard for him in non-save situations. I don’t know. It was a very impressive performance, but I’m not impressed. Maybe if they keep showing this amount of life. Maybe if this is the statistical regression back to the mean, or maybe if they just start playing like it means something. VERY DRAMATIC ANALYSIS.

But for now, I guess, Happy Brock Holt!

P.S. Don’t think I forgot that you also got caught stealing in this one, Brock.

Oh come on, I didn’t mean it.

Phew, much better.