Woodruff five times<\/a> in seven games since 2018, was incensed during and after the game ended.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s not just a hit-by-pitch,\u201d Contreras said as he stood in the clubhouse after Boston\u2019s 8-6 loss. \u201cThat is the 24th time that they hit me in my career. 24th. That\u2019s the sixth time he hit me. And they always say, \u2018I\u2019m not trying to hit you.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat gets old,\u201d Contreras continued, \u201cso the next time, they hit again, I\u2019m going to take one of them out. That\u2019s the message.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not coincidence,\u201d he added. \u201cThey\u2019re going there with a purpose. And that\u2019s fine, that\u2019s pitching. But next time you hit me, the message (is) clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brewers challenged the hit-by-pitch call, but it stood, meaning the review didn\u2019t provide sufficient evidence to overturn.<\/p>\n
Contreras then slid hard into second on Wilyer Abreu\u2019s RBI force-out, and made contact with former Red Sox infielder David Hamilton in the process. The Brewers felt it was intentional.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say purposefully, because he stayed on the bag, and that was a perfect legal slide,\u201d Contreras said.<\/p>\n
Contreras spent a decade as a division rival of the Brewers, first on the Chicago Cubs, then on St. Louis Cardinals. Though he\u2019s now an AL East player, he anticipated tension during this series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t lie, it\u2019s different with them,\u201d Contreras said of the Brewers. \u201cI talked to, I can\u2019t remember if it was (Andruw) Monasterio or (Ceddanne) Rafaela, and I said, \u2018These guys are going to hit me today, for sure.\u2019 And they did.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s going to happen, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. But they\u2019re gonna hit me again, and we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woodruff, for his part, told reporters in the visitors clubhouse, \u201cWe\u2019ve been through this \u2026 it seems like every year. He\u2019s trying to play a game and he\u2019s trying to get his side fired up. Once I knew what was going on, I wasn\u2019t going to let it affect me on the mound.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen that skit for the last 10 years,\u201d echoed Brewers star Christian Yelich, \u201cit\u2019s nothing new.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contreras went 3 for 3 in the contest, with two RBI, a walk, a double off Woodruff, and a ninth-inning Green Monster home run, off Angel Zerpa. It was his fourth game with a career-high five times on base, and first since August 11, 2023.<\/p>\n
And Contreras did admit, \u201cSometimes when I play angry, I play better. I don\u2019t know why, but that\u2019s who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Out of the hundreds of active Major League Baseball players, only one, Starling Marte, has been hit by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,48,127,136,843,59,4280,4,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-667583","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-brewers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston-red-sox","10":"tag-brandon-woodruff","11":"tag-brewers","12":"tag-milwaukee","13":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","14":"tag-milwaukeebrewers","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-willson-contreras"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116361371625300858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}