Contreras tossed – Willson Contreras was ejected for the second straight game after throwing his helmet toward Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli during a heated exchange in the fourth inning. Washington went on to win 8-1, while multiple Red Sox players and a Nationals pitcher were
Boston—Willson Contreras didn’t just lose his balance in the fourth inning. He lost his cool.
After Washington Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli struck him out looking on a full-count pitch in the top of the fourth. Contreras walked back toward the Boston dugout as the confrontation escalated. Cavalli shouted at him while he returned. and Red Sox manager Chad Tracy said he heard Cavalli yell “Sit down. boy.”.
From there, everything happened fast. Contreras approached Cavalli on the mound and the two jawed at each other with both dugouts emptying. Red Sox catcher Carlos Narvaez tried to hold him back, but Contreras broke free long enough to leap and throw his batting helmet toward Cavalli.
Things settled down quickly after the dustup, but the brief scramble still carried consequences. Contreras was ejected again, and the benches cleared with multiple additional ejections: interim manager Chad Tracy, outfielder Nate Eaton and Miles Mikolas were all sent off.
Cavalli stayed in the game and finished the night in control, allowing one run on one hit with 13 strikeouts over seven innings as the Nationals won 8-1.
The words at the center of it lingered after the fact. When asked about what he told Contreras, Cavalli said, “I don’t know. I just lose my head in it. I’m competitive. I just told him to sit down.”
Tracy later said his biggest complaint was about who stayed in the game after the altercation.
“After everything that happened, the people that they chose that were going to leave the game, I just felt like the other pitcher should have been one of them too,” Tracy said.
Tracy had already been dealing with the backdrop of Contreras’ emotions all week. The ejection on Tuesday came after a sequence that Cavalli pointed to as the spark—an incident at the end of the top of the first when Contreras nearly ran into the pitcher as both exited the field.
“He’s just been doing stuff,” Cavalli said. “In the first inning, he just runs past me and brushes me. It’s just something you don’t do in baseball. I think he knows that. I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him. And a few words were said after the strikeout. It’s part of the game. And he’s going to let everybody run out there and try and do whatever he does. throw a helmet and get himself tossed.”.
Contreras’ response to the specific phrase “boy” was cautious. The term has a racially charged history in the U.S., and Contreras—who is Venezuelan—demurred when asked if he felt there was a racial component to Cavalli’s word choice.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” Contreras said. He later added he plans to “let MLB handle that.”
Contreras described his own reaction in blunt terms. “He struck me on a good pitch, I was walking back to the dugout, and then he did what did, and the rest was history,” Contreras told reporters afterward. He added, “He was like, instigating, and I snapped.”
The ejection was the second straight night that Contreras was gone early. The early exit on Tuesday was the second time in as many nights for Contreras, with the first time that has happened to a Red Sox player in the club’s 126-year history.
On Monday, the 34-year-old—who is from Venezuela—was ejected in the second inning for mimicking an appeal call after striking out on a checked swing.
He also tied the turmoil on the field to what’s happening at home. Contreras acknowledged he is having a difficult time while his native country tries to recover from a pair of devastating earthquakes last week.
“I feel like everything is against me right now,” Contreras said. “I got ejected last night from nothing. I got ejected today even though I was walking back to the dugout.”
The loss turned the mood even sharper inside Boston. A day earlier. Contreras had provided a burst of power—hitting a three-run homer off Washington’s Miles Mikolas on Monday—and he celebrated with a massive bat flip that he later apologized for. Then he came to the mound on Tuesday. and the celebration quickly became a moment that turned into a fight. a flurry of ejections. and an 8-1 Nationals win.
Willson Contreras Cade Cavalli Red Sox Nationals ejection benches clearing Carlos Narvaez Nate Eaton Miles Mikolas Chad Tracy MLB 8-1