MILWAUKEE -- On a day when Willson Contreras was involved in a violent collision at first base, engaged in a verbal sparring session with Rhys Hoskins, got plunked by former teammate Jose Quintana and glared into the Brewers' dugout following a historic home run, the Cardinals’ fiery first baseman had his mind blown by a minor housekeeping detail to come in the days ahead.
When the rival Cardinals and Brewers wrap up what figures to be a heated series finale on Sunday -- one that comes on the heels of Saturday’s tense 8-5 win by St. Louis at American Family Field -- the two NL Central Division rivals will both head to Chicago. The Cards will be playing the White Sox, while the Brewers will be facing the Cubs. But here’s the kicker: They will be staying in the same Chicago hotel from Sunday night through Wednesday. That should make for some interesting elevator rides or breakfast conversations if emotions spill outside of this four-game series.
“What? Really?” said Contreras -- seemingly at the center of every controversial moment on Saturday -- of the rather unique lodging coincidence. “That’s crazy, and I didn’t know that. Really?”
Contreras, who sent out a motivational text message to a group chat full of his teammates, helped to shake the Cardinals out of the doldrums of a six-game losing streak that was their longest skid in more than a year. Never one to shy away from riling up a foe, Contreras caused tempers to flare in the third when he backed up at first base and collided with Brewers rookie Caleb Durbin, prompting hostilities to come out of the Milwaukee dugout from Hoskins. Contreras denied doing anything to purposefully injure Durbin.
“I wasn’t trying to get him hurt,” Contreras said. “He was running inside the line, I stayed there, and I have all the rights to stand on the bag. And I don’t think it was anybody’s fault. It’s part of the game.”
An inning later, Cardinals starter Andre Pallante hit Hoskins, and the fireworks restarted when the veteran got to first. Contreras stood between Hoskins and the bag, repeatedly daring him.
“He didn’t say nothing to me. I was expecting him to say something, but he was looking away,” Contreras recalled. “I said, ‘Look at my face. Say it to my face, whatever you were saying from the dugout.’ He was looking away and said, ‘Get off the base.’ Then, I said, ‘Push me,’ and he didn’t, so it was all good.”
Then, in the fifth, Quintana drilled Contreras -- his former Cubs teammate -- to inflame tensions again.
“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it from Quintana,” Contreras said. “I caught him for [four] years, I know him very well, he’s a great guy, a great person and a great teammate. That’s probably why he stood up for his teammates. I have nothing but respect for Quintana. We’re nice. I got the ball to him, and I said, ‘We’re fine.’ We’re not going to have any beef about it, and it’s done.”
Two batters later, lefty slugger Nolan Gorman blasted a Statcast-projected 433-foot homer that put the Cardinals up 7-1 and proved to be the difference in the game.
“[Gorman] is feeling really good, and even with his left-on-left at-bats, you can tell that he’s staying in there really well,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “We’re getting a lot more contact from him, and for him to drive that one for the three-run homer, that was a big swing, obviously. He continues to take really, really good at-bats.”
Contreras regained his role as the villain in the ninth inning when he homered and helped to make a bit of baseball history in the process. After homering to the opposite field, Contreras glared back at Hoskins and the Milwaukee dugout. His brother, Brewers catcher William, then homered in the bottom of the ninth inning. They became just the second set of brothers to homer in the same inning as opponents since 1900, joining Rick (Boston) and Wes Ferrell (Cleveland) from 1933, per Elias Sports.
On this day, Contreras was more concerned about shaking his Cardinals out of their losing ways than setting some MLB history.
“When a team is going bad and running on low energy like today, I did feel like I had to do something to fire them up,” he said. “What happened today at first base, I think it fires everybody up. I know that I’m not here to hurt anybody. If I want to hurt the [Durbin] guy, I’ll do worse than that, believe me. That’s my point -- why would I hurt a guy who is just starting his career and he’s young? So it doesn’t make sense to me.”