Willson Contreras Met With Red Sox Manager, Exec for 2 Hours After Comments Following Yankees Loss

Willson Contreras didn't mince words after the Boston Red Sox were swept by the New York Yankees in the Wild Card Round, seemingly taking aim at analytics in particular after Sonny Gray was pulled in the fifth inning of Game 2 despite throwing just 70 pitches and giving up just two earned runs.

"It's not enough when you have talent or you have data or you have computers that's telling you what to do. Because this is baseball," Contreras told reporters. "And the data is here to help us. But at the end of the day, you're gonna have to need experience and veteran guys to win games."

On Monday, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said he met with Contreras and manager Chad Tracy and had a constructive discussion.

"We met for over two hours and we talked about a host of things," he told reporters. "Many of those I will keep private just to kind of preserve the relationship that we have. But it was incredibly constructive and covered a wide scope of things. Willson would be the right person to ask directly, but he spoke very, very highly of his time here, how much he's looking forward to 2027 and the way that he and his family appreciated the Red Sox."

Contreras was not alone in his frustrations regarding the Gray decision, especially considering the bullpen went on to give up another seven runs.

"I think I'm the best pitcher in the American League going through the order a third time. I think that's a fact," Gray told reporters. "I would have liked to have been trusted in that moment."

Tracy, meanwhile, said the decision to pull Gray was his and wasn't a predetermined move coming from the front office or analytics department.

"The decisions are mine," he told reporters. "We have information, just like all the other 29 teams have information. Everybody has that. I've said this before: Since I've been here, do I sit in the office and talk through who's available throughout the entire season, who's available today, what's the best way to deploy them, who's down every single day? You do that. But not one time since I've been here has anybody scripted a game, has anybody told me, use this number right here to decide in this inning. Those decisions, they're mine. So as far as that specific one, my decision that obviously didn't go great. That falls on me. Do we have data, analytics? Of course we do. Everybody does. Is somebody standing there pushing me, saying, 'You need to do this, this, and this?' Absolutely not."

The Gray conversation—and pitching struggles overall during Wild Card Round—has somewhat overshadowed the fact that Boston's offense managed just two runs in the two losses against the Yankees.