"Go Ask The Umpire" Wilson Contreras Is Back With The Red Sox But He Had This Weird Moment With A Minor League Ump Before Coming Back
Prediction time: Wilson Contreras will do something to piss off Yankees fans when the two teams meet in the Wild Card round of the AL Playoffs in a few weeks. Like, he's going to do something that goes viral in that highly anticipated best-of-three.
So this happened on Saturday Night in Portland. Contreras was making his final appearance for the Double-A Portland Seadogs - he was recalled to Boston on Sunday. He was in Portland rehabbing his hamstring injury.
During an at-bat, he appears to point to his bat and ask the umpire to go back to the dugout for something. When the umpire called him back to the batter's box and said he couldn't, Contreras just refused to swing the bat. At all. He even appeared to tell the opposing pitcher to just throw it down the middle. He never swung the bat until he was eventually called out on strikes.
He then tossed his bat away as he walked back to the dugout.
There was some online speculation that he was asking about Pine Tar.
He posted this Sunday on his IG story. Is he trying to tell us that's what he wanted to go back to the dugout for?
No media report shows Contreras being asked about this after the game in Maine. But he was asked about it Sunday after the Red Sox win.
"I don't know, you can go ask the umpire. His name is Gary."
Actually, according to the MILB Box Score on the Sea Dogs website, his name is NOT Gary. It's Daniel Bytheway. That's his real name. I think.
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Hall of Famer Jim Rice didn't seem to mind, based on his reaction to the clip on TV. I thought it was sort of funny too, but I wasn't getting too worked up over it.
Plenty of baseball fans sure did. Hundreds of comments like this out there.
I guess the ump doesn't have to let Contreras go back to the dugout…but why wouldn't he? Is it really that big a deal?
I don't think Contreras was going back there to be a dink or delay the game - I think he wanted to make sure he had a good grip on his bat so he could take some legit hacks up there. Isn't that sort of a safety thing? I think it's safe to say he might not have prepped all his bats the way he wanted for his two-game rehab stint.
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Maybe that's why he didn't swing? Maybe he felt like he didn't trust it without the pine tar or stick um or whatever.
Or maybe it was just Wilson Being Wilson. He's had a bunch of these moments this year. Contreras pisses people off - it's his superpower. He plays with an edge, and if you're an opposing fan, you hate him.
And if you root for the Red Sox, you love the guy.
Brad Marchand on the Bruins. Paul O'Neil on the Yankees. These guys had the same ability to get under the skin of opponents (and their fans) while still being beloved by the home team.
Fangrahs has the Red Sox as 100% a Wild Card team. Six games up on the Guardians with 12 games to play, it seems like the Sox are a lock for that No. 2 seed. That means going to the No. 1 seed for the Wild Card. The Yankees still have an outside shot at the division, and they play the Rays next week, but it sure seems like we're on a collision course for Red Sox / Yankees in New York. No odds are listed for that exact matchup.
But if we do, it feels like a lock that Wilson Contreras will do something that we're all talking about. Or, in my case, blogging about.