Contreras said following Monday’s loss<\/a>. “And they always say, ‘I’m not trying to hit you.’ That gets old. So, next time they hit me again, I’m going to take one of them out. That’s the message.” <\/p>\nBelieve it or not, this was not hyperbole on the part of Contreras. A Cub and then a Cardinal, Contreras has faced the Brewers plenty throughout his MLB career, and has been hit by the Brewers a whopping 24 times. That’s 10 more than the next-closest team on the proverbial Plunk List involving Contreras. And Monday was indeed the sixth such incident involving Woodruff and Contreras. <\/p>\n
\u201cNobody likes getting hit at any point,” Contreras, who clearly played with a bit more fire after the hit by pitch, said. “I took exception with it. It\u2019s the 24th time. It\u2019s not a coincidence. They\u2019re going there with a purpose. And that\u2019s fine, that\u2019s pitching. But next time you hit me, the message is clear: I\u2019m going to take one of them out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked about the origins of the beef, Contreras couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment, but noted that it’s been happening since 2016. And with 131 hit by pitches, getting plunked is nothing new for Contreras. (Among active players, only the Royals\u2019 Starling Marte, with 166 hit by pitches, has been hit more than Contreras). But it’s what he views as a lack of care for his health on the part of the Brewers that really irks him and has led to this warning shot. Ironically enough, Contreras’ younger brother, William, is the catcher for Milwaukee. When asked if he’s brought up the issue to William, Willson said that it’s not something they need to talk about. <\/p>\n
In-game, a frustrated Contreras opted not to charge the mound because it was early in the game and the team needed him. But he did try to take his pound of flesh with a hard slide into ex-Red Sox utilityman David Hamilton moments later. The slide was enough to rip Hamilton’s pants. After the game, Contreras said it was a clean slide. <\/p>\n
The Brewers, meanwhile, didn’t want to take the bait on Contreras. <\/p>\n
“We’ve been through that. It’s been like nine years for me [and] it seems like every year,” the Brewers’ Woodruff said following the win. “He’s trying to play a game, and he’s trying to get his side fired up, which is fine.” <\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve seen that skit for the last 10 years, it\u2019s nothing new,” Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich said. “Not surprising. You just keep it rolling. You got a game to win.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And maybe a fight Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how they approach Contreras following Monday’s postgame warning shot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After yet another plunking, Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras has no interest in giving the Brandon Woodruff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,48,136,843,59,4280,4,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-668000","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-brewers","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","13":"tag-milwaukeebrewers","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-willson-contreras"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116362539835380190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668000","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=668000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}