BOSTON — What little drama existed in the Red Sox’ 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins Saturday mostly took place in the fourth inning.
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After sending the minimum number of hitters to the plate in the first three innings and held without a hit until one out in the fourth, the Red Sox, trailing 2-0 at the time, showed signs of life.
A one-out single by Mickey Gasper, followed by an infield hit by Willson Contreras gave the Sox baserunners at the corners. One out later, Ceddanne Rafaela then laced a line drive to the gap in right-center, scoring Gasper from second with Boston’s first run.
Third base coach Chad Epperson initially waved Contreras home before changing his mind and putting up a stop sign as the first baseman neared the third-base bag. Contreras, who by then had his head down to make sure he caught the third base bag, continued home.
A relay throw from Orlando Arcia easily beat Contreras to the plate, where Twins catcher Victor Caratini was standing.
That’s when things got interesting.
Contreras, sensing he was going to be out, didn’t attempt to slide and instead bumped Caratini as the tag was applied to him. Contreras was heading for the home dugout when Caratini followed him and grabbed him by the shoulder to register displeasure over the bump.
Soon, tensions flared somewhat and both dugouts and bullpens emptied.
“It wasn’t anything malicious,” said Contreras, “or anything at all. It was not (done with) any bad intentions. I played with him in Chicago for a long time. When I was getting to home plate and saw that I was going to be out. I tried to stop myself, but at the end of the day, if I dive, I might hit him harder.
“I took exception to that, but there wasn’t anything bad or malicious to that play. He told me I should have (tried to) slide or something like that. From my perspective, (in that case) I might have hit him harder than what actually happened. But at the end of the day, that’s a tough play. I needed to try to touch home plate because that’s what I needed to do.”
As Contreras and Caratini jawed, players on the field soon surrounded them and were quickly joined by players emptying from the dugout and the outfield bullpens.
The dust-up was the second this season involving Contreras, who was angered after being hit by a pitch in an April game against Milwaukee.
“I was surprised,” said Contreras. “The Twins are an organization I respect a lot and I’ve never had any kind of problem with them. And even more (surprising) with Caratini behind the plate. He’s a close friend of mine, for him to get him mad at that was kind of surprising and the fact that the benches emptied was surprising as well.”
As it turned out, the Red Sox didn’t cross the plate again until a bases-loaded walk in the ninth resulted in their final run. They managed just two hits over the final five innings.
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