Red Sox's Willson Contreras Awkwardly Comments on Umpire Incident

The moment went viral on Baseball Twitter, and had Contreras done the same thing in the majors, it might be the talk of the sport the next day. He returned to the big leagues on Sunday, so it was no surprise that the All-Star would be asked about it as soon as he was available for postgame quotes.

Contreras quickly shuts down umpire controversy

Contreras placed all the blame for the moment on the umpire, perhaps not surprisingly, and didn't elaborate on any of the circumstantial details.

“I don’t know, you can go ask the umpire, his name is Gary,” Contreras said, per Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic.

According to McCaffrey, interim manager Chad Tracy said he hadn't yet seen the play when he, too, was asked about it in the postgame shuffle.

Contreras was making his first appearance in the majors since Aug. 30, and showed well with two singles, a walk, and a throwing error from the third baseman that allowed him to scamper to second base.

So if the trade-off for Red Sox fans is that Contreras' return comes with some outside noise, it's likely a winning proposition if the slugger's hamstring is in good form.

“I ran a lot today on the field, and my hammy feels pretty good,” Contreras said, per McCaffrey. “I won’t lie, if I wasn’t feeling really good in Portland, I wasn’t going to play tonight, but that’s how I made my decision to come back to the team.”

After defeating the Kansas City Royals, the Red Sox and Contreras had only 12 games left in the regular season before an almost-guaranteed date with the New York Yankees in the Bronx to advance to the American League Division Series.