Contreras, Mayer clear air after postgame comments: 'We get along great'

DETROIT -- With the Red Sox off to a tough 13-21 start entering Monday, everything is being scrutinized more than usual, including postgame quotes.

Particularly when those quotes are aggregated on social media and websites without context.

After Sunday’s frustrating 3-1 loss in 10 innings to the Astros, Willson Contreras made a somewhat innocuous statement that Boston has a lot of young players, and it can be harder for young players to get out of early-season slumps.

That line of thinking, though not attributed to Contreras or any other Red Sox player, was relayed to second baseman Marcelo Mayer a few minutes later.

“To me, that’s just kind of an excuse: blame the young guys. But at the end of the day, we’re all playing baseball, we’re all pros,” Mayer said.

Several outlets made aggregation posts to make it seem like Mayer was taking a shot at Contreras. Mayer made it clear on Monday he was not.

“I think things just got taken out of context. I didn’t mean to take a shot at anybody, obviously, especially not to Willson,” Mayer said. “Willson and I have a great relationship. He’s an amazing teammate. He’s a great person. He’s a true veteran of this game and we really respect him in the clubhouse, and he helps us a lot. He helps the team, he helps the young guys, so none of that was directed toward Willson.

“It was more of, just, we acknowledge as a team that we’re young, but we have high standards and we expect to win with this team that we have. That’s pretty much it. Classic blown out of proportion, Twitter-type things.”

Contreras was upset that he was portrayed as not giving his younger teammates full support.

“What I said was, when you’re young, it’s easy to fall into the trap of the numbers. I’m here to help the guys. And when we lose, we all lose as a team. That’s what I said,” Contreras said through interpreter Carlos Villoria-Benitez. “I think one of the things, instead of trying to [say] if I’m a bad teammate, try to talk to all my teammates to see how good or bad a teammate I am. That’s the best way to do it. I think it’s unfair that [it was portrayed] as me against my team when that wasn’t even close to what I meant.”

Mayer and Contreras were seen having pleasant interactions prior to Monday’s game.

“We get along great,” Contreras said. “He knows I’m trying to help the team win, trying to help him win, because I’ve been there. I know how hard it is to hit, I know how hard it is to play defense, and I know hard it is to be a big leaguer. I’ve been through this.”

One other thing Contreras said on Sunday that got a lot of attention -- and subsequent misinterpretation -- is that the team had seemed a lot looser in the dugout since Alex Cora was dismissed as manager after a 17-1 win on April 25 in Baltimore. Contreras was not criticizing Cora, or saying he did anything in particular to make the players feel uptight.

“I think Alex did a great job here,” Contreras said. “Everything he did here was amazing. What I see is the guys feel ... they feel more relaxed, that’s what I can feel. That was it. I do think that for us, Alex did a great job with us. He was communicating. I think it was up to us to ask more questions. I think that’s pretty much it.”