Red Sox Notes: Chris Martin Explains What Led To Benches Clearing Vs. Brewers

Chris Martin wasn’t thrilled by the Brewers’ approach at the plate in the seventh inning, and the Boston Red Sox reliever let Milwaukee first base coach Quintin Berry hear it.

Martin told reporters after Boston’s 2-1 win at Fenway Park on Sunday he was annoyed the Brewers bunted on consecutive at-bats in what was then a 1-1 game.

When Martin walked off the field following a Christian Yelich inning-ending groundout to first base, the veteran right-hander said a few things under his breath that Berry heard and clearly didn’t appreciate.

“I didn’t like it,” Martin told reporters about Milwaukee’s bunting, as seen on NESN. “I know it’s part of the game, but it is what I is. I let them know.

“I feel like in this league, swing the bat. That’s it.”

The verbal exchange between Berry and Martin prompted both benches to clear. There were no punches thrown, but Red Sox manager Alex Cora and outfielder Jarren Duran could sense it fired up those in Boston’s dugout.

Martin was all for the Red Sox feeding off that energy.

“Obviously you don’t want things like that to happen. It looks bad,” Martin said. “But heat of the moment, it’s competition. I said something, he said something back. It’s not like it was a one-way street, it was a two-way street. So, it is what it is. It’s over now. We won.”

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Here are more notes from Red Sox-Brewers:

— Duran knocked in the game-winning run on a RBI single in the eighth inning. Duran hit the first pitch of the at-bat, one pitch after Ceddanne Rafaela stroked a lead-off double in the frame.

“They’ve been throwing me first-pitch strikes a lot in this series,” Duran told NESN’s Jahmai Webster immediately after the game. “So I was like, ‘Alright, if I get the pitch in the area I want, I got to get after it.’ Because they got some really good pitching, and when you get into deep counts they got some good stuff. So just trying to get on them early.”

— Tanner Houck put together another dominant start for the Red Sox. He limited the Brewers to one run on seven hits in six innings and struck out seven. Houck said he thought his split-finger fastball was his best pitch of the day, a pitch he threw 31.2% of the time, as shared on the NESN broadcast.

“Tanner was amazing,” Cora said.

— The Red Sox are now 9-0 when playing on Sunday this season. Boston has a plus-38 run differential while the combined ERA of starting pitchers is 1.89 on Sunday afternoon, per NESN.

“Yeah, it feels good to avoid the sweep,” Cora said. “We didn’t do a good job last year of that, right? I think we were horrible on Sundays. This year is a little bit different, it feels like.”

— Rafaela scored the game-winning run after he led off the eighth inning with a double. It marked Rafaela’s second hit of the game, and his second consecutive day with multiple hits.

“We’ve been talking about it, he’s a dynamic player,” Cora said. “You can see the move is getting shorter and shorter. And hopefully when he gets it, he takes off.”

— The Red Sox travel to Baltimore for a three-game series against the Orioles. First pitch on Memorial Day is set for 1:05 p.m. ET, and you can watch it live on NESN after an hour of pregame coverage.