When the final out was made in the bottom of the first inning Tuesday night, it seemed like it was going to be a fairly innocuous evening at Fenway Park. The Red Sox had kept their momentum from a recent five-game win streak going with a run off Nationals starter Cade Cavalli, setting the stage for a pleasant summer evening for all in attendance.
Little did virtually anybody realize, but within those few seconds, chaos was being hatched.
Willson Contreras had run across the diamond to his own dugout, brushing Cavalli on his path back to the first base side of things. After the game, both Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy and Contreras insisted the first baseman issued a quick apology to the pitcher. Cavalli saw it differently.
"I apologized," Contreras said of the quick interaction. "I felt something; I was like, 'My fault.' It was like nothing. It's like, if he thinks that was on purpose, that’s not."
"You don't run by me and just brush me going off the field,” Cavalli said. “It's just not something you do in this game. I didn't say anything [to him] in the moment. I struck him out; words were said [then]."
Whatever the reality, the moment served as the impetus for the night's signature moment three innings later.
After striking out Contreras, Cavalli could be heard yelling, "Sit down, boy!" It was enough to make the Sox's hitter start to approach the pitcher, which led to the benches clearing and Contreras ultimately throwing his helmet in the direction of Cavalli. When the fracas had subsided, Contreras, Tracy, Nate Eaton, and Miles Mikolas were all ejected (the latter two because of their own wrestling match). The Nationals' starter, however, stayed in the game.
"I mean, obviously it escalated, right? I felt like my argument- obviously, I was kicked out of the game- was that the comment made, ‘Sit down, boy,’ at the top of your lungs was part of what caused that to happen," Tracy said. "I just felt like the other pitcher should have been one of them too. That was my biggest complaint there, like why is he still in the game? That was my take on it."
"He was instigating. I snapped. That happened," Contreras said.
Then there was Mikolas's take.
“When something like that happens, you get out there and you do your best to de-escalate the situation. But you still want to go out there and look tough,” Mikolas told reporters. “You go out there, you look for somebody you know from the other team, maybe, and you pretend to grab ‘em around or whatever. ... It doesn’t happen often, it’s not something you necessarily enjoy, but maybe you enjoy it a little bit because you don’t get to get out there and roughhouse as an adult very often. The big thing is, you don’t want to go out there and hurt anybody. No one’s punching anybody out there or anything like that."
What was somewhat lost at the time of the brouhaha was Red Sox starter Connelly Early needing to come out of the game once that bottom of the fourth was completed due to elbow discomfort.
Early said he felt something wasn't quite right after throwing his final pitch of the fourth, leading to a conversation with pitching coach Andrew Bailey and an exit from the start.
"I'm personally not too concerned as of right now," the lefty said. "We'll see tomorrow with imaging. Just trying to kind of figure out what to do from there."
After all the fourth-inning drama, there was still a game to play and a Red Sox win streak to preserve, with the hosts clinging to a 1-0 lead. But the combination of Danny Coulombe, Greg Weissert, Justin Slaten and Tommy Kahnle couldn't hold off the Nationals, allowing eight runs over the next four innings on the way to an 8-1 loss to Washington. (It also led to Kahnle being designated for assignment following the game.)
By night's end, a good chunk of the optimism that followed the Red Sox into Tuesday had dissipated. Their best hitter will likely be lost to suspension. A key piece of the starting rotation might be sidelined due to injury. And Tracy's team found itself back to five games out of a wild card spot, just 1/2 game behind where they were before their recent win streak.
Welcome to the wild world of the 2026 Red Sox.
