Willson Contreras didn’t need to get on a stool in the middle of the Red Sox’s clubhouse following his team’s 8-6 loss to the Brewers. He did his part. The first baseman reached base five times, including hitting a ninth-inning home run.
And, to top it off, he did all of it while staring down a team that has now hit him with pitches 24 times, including one Monday night that led to some verbal back-and-forth during and after the game.
"They always say, 'I'm not trying to hit you,'" Contreras said. "That gets old. So, next time they hit me again, I'm going to take one of them out. That's a message."
"I mean, we've seen that skit for the last 10 years," Brewers slugger Christian Yelich told reporters of Contreras. "It's nothing new."
"I mean, we've been through that. It's been like nine years for me. It seems like every year," said Brewers starter Brandon Woodruff. "He's trying to play a game, and he's trying to get his side fired up, which is fine. Once I knew what was going on, I wasn't going to let it affect me."
All well and good. And maybe it carries over to Tuesday's showdown between aces Garrett Crochet and Jacob Misiorowski. But the reality remains the same, as it did after the proclamation by Roman Anthony called the Sox's start "unacceptable."
They are a major league team getting routinely beaten by other major league teams.
Contreras can talk. Anthony can talk. Red Sox manager Alex Cora can talk. Nobody is going to begrudge them for finding any way possible to put a dent into what has become a start that has equaled the worst in franchise history.
And the fans can also certainly have their say, a right they have consistently exercised in the form of boisterous "Sell the team!" chants.
The problem is, as the Boston-based band "Extreme" once sang, more than words. Much more.
For most of these 10 games, it had been the offense's uncomfortable inability to score runs. Some of that anxiety was eased on Monday after Cora's lineup shuffling paid dividends. Not only did the new top hitters - Roman Anthony, Masa Yoshida, Contreras and Wilyer Abreu - manage a combined seven hits, three walks and just two strikeouts, but it seemingly unlocked a better version of the struggling Trevor Story.
Story managed his first two RBI since the second game of the season, with Caleb Durbin also coming away with his first multi-hit game as a Red Sox.
(As a sidenote: Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy did everything he could to use his words in a positive manner when it came to his former third baseman, Durbin, saying, "Caleb Durbin, he’s a winner. He’s a winner in every sense of the word. Anybody who was watching the Milwaukee Brewers, which I know other people don’t watch the Milwaukee Brewers because people don’t know about us yet, but anybody who watched us last year, a huge part of our success is that kid. He epitomized our spirit. He epitomized what we were about, how we play the game. I don’t worry about that kid. Don’t lose sleep over his lack of numbers so far. I knew another kid that played for Boston (Dustin Pedroia) and started slow and he’s going to get his number put up there someday.")
OK. But as we have discovered over this stretch, fixing just one problem usually won't lead to the ultimate answer.
Again, it comes back to words and how they haven't resulted in results.
The mantra for 2026 was that wins would arrive courtesy of elite pitching and improved defense. They have gotten neither, which is a big reason why the Sox are 5 1/2 games out of first place.
While the energy and intent of the offense were clearly a higher level than in previous games, it really doesn't matter all that much if your starter gives up four runs in 3 1/3 innings, as was the case with Brayan Bello.
The Red Sox's starters' ERA now ranks 27th in Major League Baseball, worse than the Colorado Rockies and light-years behind what the Yankees are rolling out (1.81).
"Like I said a few days ago, we have to pitch for us to get back to .500," Cora said. "To go to where we want to go, we have to pitch. That's the bottom line. We walked eight. They had 18 at-bats with men in scoring position. It's very hard to win that way."
There were other issues. Roman Anthony's throwing issues once again emerged, this time with the game tied and two outs in the eighth inning, when his attempt at gunning down Brice Turang went somewhat sideways. "It was a terrible throw, again. We didn’t have a shot with that throw. Gotta be better. It was terrible," the outfielder said. And not helping matters was that for the second straight game, a pitcher, in this case Garrett Whitlock, didn't back up home plate, allowing for additional damage.
The Red Sox are fortunate that the one player who makes up for more mistakes than anybody on the roster, Garrett Crochet, takes the mound at Fenway Park, Tuesday. But as we have discovered, this season's best-laid plans have rarely gone as scheduled.
Game 2 of this series represents the Red Sox's best opportunity to show they are more than words, and this plan is truly viable.
If they don't figure out a way, the words will keep coming, the kind everybody associated with the team won't want to hear.
