Monday night’s game between the Brewers and Red Sox got chippy out of nowhere.
With two runners on and no outs, Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras stepped to the plate against veteran starter Brandon Woodruff. Woodruff’s first pitch was a high-and-tight sinker just a couple of inches inside. Contreras, known for crowding the strike zone, couldn’t get his hands away in time.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Contreras was actually hit by the pitch, so Milwaukee elected to challenge the ruling on the field. Replay evidence wasn’t strong enough to overturn the call, so Contreras was awarded first base.
MLB.com reporter Adam McCalvy later asked Brewers catcher William Contreras, Willson’s younger brother, whether or not he thought the pitch actually hit the elder Contreras:
Wm. Contreras: “They said it hit him, so it’s a hit-by-pitch.”
McCalvy: From (your) crouch at home plate, did (you) hear anything?
Take a look for yourself:
Contreras was irate, slowly walking down the first base line while shouting at Woodruff. He didn’t stop upon reaching the bag, with two Red Sox coaches and first base umpire John Tumpane getting in front of Contreras to try and calm him down.
The next batter was cleanup hitter Wilyer Abreu, who hit a grounder to second baseman Brice Turang for a potential double play ball. Turang flipped the ball to shortstop David Hamilton, who was covering second. As Hamilton tried to turn the double play, Contreras came in with his spikes up, ripping up his pant leg and leaving him doubled over in pain.
Contreras explained his reaction in a postgame interview.
“It’s the 24th time (the Brewers) have hit me in my career. It’s the sixth time that (Brandon Woodruff) has hit me, and they always say, ‘I’m not trying to hit you.’ That gets old. So next time they hit me again, I’m going to take one of them out. That’s a message.”
It’s pretty clear what Contreras is getting at. He thinks the Brewers are doing this on purpose. That’s… a pretty serious claim, one that naturally leads to a question:
Are the Brewers doing this on purpose?
First, let’s start with a few simpler questions.
Does Willson Contreras get hit a lot?
What about on a per-game basis?
Contreras has played 1,089 career Major League Baseball games, totaling 4,318 plate appearances. He’s been hit by 131 pitches. In other words, Contreras has been hit by a pitch in about 12% of the games he’s played in.
Since 2018, hit-by-pitch rates have been rising. The average batter now gets plunked 10 times per 1,000 plate appearances, or 1%. Contreras has been plunked 131 times in 4,318 plate appearances, or roughly 3%.
So yes, he gets hit by pitches a lot — three times as much as the average player.
Contreras is also widely considered to be a player who “crowds the plate.” He stands very close to the plate, so pitches that might not hit someone with a more open stance are more likely to hit him.
Does Woodruff hit a lot of batters?
Brandon Woodruff has hit 33 batters over 755 2/3 career innings pitched. Per Baseball Reference, pitchers average about 0.04 hit batters per inning. 33 divided by 755 2/3 works out to 0.044 hit batters per inning, or just slightly more than average.
It’s worth noting that four of the six Woodruff v. Contreras hit-by-pitches have come on sinkers, while the other two have come on fastballs. Both pitches are characterized by arm-side run, which means they break in on right-handed batters. If Woodruff misses with a sinker a couple of inches off the plate, he’s more likely to hit Contreras than he is the average batter. As you can see on the scatter plot of all six hit-by-pitches, only one of them is an egregious miss.
To quote Bob Uecker, these all look like he tried the corner and missed.
Does Contreras get hit by pitches more when facing the Brewers?
Contreras has been hit 24 times in 468 career plate appearances against the Brewers, which works out to 5.1% of the time. So, also yes. Here’s the pitch chart of every Contreras hit-by-pitch against Milwaukee:
The vast majority of these pitches are sinkers or four-seam fastballs, which isn’t a coincidence. The Brewers are a smart organization. The conventional approach against a hitter who crowds the plate is to establish the inner half early by throwing hard pitches that run in on the hands, forcing the hitter to back off the plate while creating weak contact — jam shots, broken bats, etc. When you’re consistently attacking inside with pitches that have arm-side run, misses tend to come further in than intended.
I also want to point out that none of these pitches are at the head (dirty, potentially intentional) or feet (more respectful, but still potentially intentional). All of these pitches — save for that Devin Williams changeup, which just looks like a miss — follow the pattern that you would expect when a pitcher is attacking Contreras. Tried the corner and missed.
So, are these hit-by-pitches intentional, as Contreras implies?
Probably not, no. But I did just say the Brewers are a smart organization, and it would be very smart of the Brewers to disguise their malicious beanings of Contreras to avoid repercussions.
I don’t get paid enough to break down every career Contreras vs. Brewers hit-by-pitch, so let’s look at every Contreras vs. Woodruff hit by pitch:
Contreras v. Woodruff: A Brief Beef History
Twitter has everything, including a video of every time Woodruff has drilled Contreras:
HBP #1: The catcher sets up on the inside corner, Woodruff misses his spot by a few inches, Contreras is in on the plate and gets hit in the elbow. Verdict: Unintentional.
HBP #2: Contreras is off the plate a bit more; it looks like the ball just gets away from Woody. The catcher sets up low and inside, but he misses high and inside. If the Brewers were trying to bean Contreras, they probably would have set up high and inside to provide more plausible deniability. Verdict: Unintentional.
HPB #3: Contreras is in on the plate, the catcher sets up high and inside, Woodruff’s pitch comes in at the height of the catcher’s glove but misses the plate by a couple of inches, Contreras stands there and takes it off the elbow guard. If Contreras had tried to get out of the way at all, it wouldn’t have hit him. That’s not a bad thing; the smart thing to do as a baseball player is to take the free base, but it also provides more evidence that this hit-by-pitch was, in fact, unintentional.
HBP #4: Contreras’ elbow is basically on the plate, and the pitch is close enough that he swings at it. Verdict: Unintentional.
HBP #5: It’s a little hard to tell because of the angle this was filmed at, but it doesn’t appear that Contreras is egregiously close to the plate. However, thanks to Statcast, you can tell that the ball looks to be right off the edge of the batter’s box when it hit him. Verdict: Unintentional.
The Brewers do not have a vendetta against Willson Contreras. They are not trying to intentionally injure the older brother of their All-Star catcher. They are trying to win baseball games.