Everyone gets to choose their battles, and Willson Contreras left no doubts about which one he wanted on Monday night.
In the bottom of the seventh inning on an 0-2 count against the Pirates, the Cardinals’ first baseman was called for strike three on a pitch near the center of the plate. Contreras shared a couple of words with the umpire, which turned into a face-to-face confrontation, and quickly evolved into an ejection and a flurry of expletives.
Expletives weren’t all that was thrown by Contreras toward the umpire. As he was escorted off by a coach, he threw his bat back in the direction of the argument. The only issue was it hit Cardinals’ hitting coach Brant Brown in the chest. There was a point in the scuffle where manager Oliver Marmol had to restrain Contreras.
The punchline of the story unfortunately wasn’t caught on camera directly. Shortly after Contreras was forced into the dugout, a bucket of Hi-Chew candy found its way onto the field. The broadcast crew made the safe assumption that it was the first baseman who launched the sweet treats onto the field.
Willson Contreras was so mad at this umpire that he threw a bat that hit his own coach and then launched a bunch of Hi-Chew onto the field pic.twitter.com/fslJY71FS6
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 26, 2025
Contreras is not known as a patient saint by any means, but even this was a strong outburst from the 10-year veteran. What made it more shocking was that the pitch looked to be clearly in the strike zone. It was low on the robo-ump system but still in the box. For Contreras to die on this hill was an odd choice, to say the least.
Wilson Contreras got ejected, made physical contact with the umpire, threw his helmet, flipped his bat at a member of cards staff (?), had to be restrained, then threw a bucket of bubblegum onto the field.
Here was the pitch. pic.twitter.com/qQvw9W9ULj
— Connor Williams⚾🏴☠️ (@Wins_Williams) August 26, 2025
Whatever the reason, the veteran’s night was done quickly after the incident, and fans will wait and see if there’s any further punishment.
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