Austin Wells had every reason to come out after taking two shots to the same elbow, but he stayed put. With Ali Sánchez waiting behind him, Wells appeared unwilling to hand a razor-thin rivalry game over to the backup catcher, even if it meant playing through pain.

“Willson Contreras has caught Austin Wells on the elbow with his backswing twice tonight,” Foul Territory shared the footage via X.

One exit in the first inning could have changed the entire night. And if Willson Contreras thought those brutal backswings would knock Wells out of the game, he got the opposite result. Wells stayed, absorbed another hit, and later helped seal Boston’s 1-0 loss.

In the first inning, Contreras went after a 99 mph pitch from Cam Schlittler that was sailing out of the zone. He missed the ball, but his backswing found Austin Wells’ left elbow instead. Contreras barely reacted, while Wells immediately grabbed his arm in obvious pain. “Not good,” the Yankees’ announcers said.

Then came the third inning, and somehow, it happened again. Contreras chased another 99 mph heater from Schlittler that was drifting out of the zone, missed it, and whipped his backswing straight into Wells’ left elbow. Same spot, same pain, second warning. “It hit the elbow area once again,” the Yankees’ announcers said as Wells was left hurting behind the plate for the second time in three innings.

But Wells stayed in, and from there, the game gave him no room to hide the pain.

After Goldschmidt’s third-inning homer gave New York a 1-0 lead, the rest of the night turned into a grind. Neither side scored again over the final six innings, with Boston finishing with five hits and the Yankees just three. Schlittler held the Red Sox scoreless through 5 2/3 innings before Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn, and David Bednar protected the one-run cushion the rest of the way.

Boston kept getting chances, but every rally died before it could turn into a run, while the Yankees’ offense went quiet as well.

And this was hardly the first time Contreras’ all-out style had pushed a game toward chaos.

Back on May 23 against the Twins, he slid headfirst through first base and knocked over Kody Clemens, then later tried to score from first on a Ceddanne Rafaela double and collided with catcher Victor Caratini at home, forcing both benches and bullpens to empty.

Contreras denied any bad intent and summed up his approach by saying he is “an aggressive player,” a mindset that has defined his season.

He entered Friday leading Boston with 26 home runs and 78 RBIs while batting .281, already surpassing his previous career high of 24 homers set with the Cubs in 2019. So there was little reason to expect him to suddenly dial things back against the Yankees. The problem was that his aggression came with collateral damage this time.

However, despite the heated history between the Yankees and Red Sox, neither hit sparked a bench-clearing scene, and the game moved on. For Boston’s $87.5 million slugger, though, there was some irony in it. Contreras was now on the other side of the exact kind of contact he repeatedly suffered during his time with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Contreras knows that pain better than most because he spent years on the other side of the plate. In 2023, while catching for St. Louis, Ian Happ’s follow-through clipped him in the helmet and left a deep scalp cut that had to be closed with medical glue. A year later, another backswing proved even worse when J.D. Martinez struck his left forearm, causing a fracture that kept Contreras out for weeks.

Contreras had already moved to first base with St. Louis before Boston acquired him, and he has remained there with the Red Sox. The irony did not help him at the plate, though. Contreras went hitless in four at-bats on Friday. Boston managed just five hits as a team, with Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu collecting two each and Eli White adding the other.

The Yankees’ offense was also nothing better as they won 1-0. In an otherwise sluggish game night, it was the Yankees’ catcher who came out as a winner.

The Yankees’ catcher secured the win against Boston

Only three Red Sox batters could manage a hit, while the Yankees finished with three hits. The only difference was that one of the Yankees’ three hits went for a home run. One run scored, and that was the final scoreline. However, it was Wells’ effort that restricted the Red Sox from scoring anything.

In the seventh, the Red Sox covered second and third base with one out. Rafaela was on third when Contreras hit a 262-foot fly ball to left field. However, after Cody Bellinger caught Contreras at the outfield, a laser from him was perfectly caught by Wells at home plate as he tagged Rafaela out, preventing him from scoring a run.

“We were all screaming,” Red Sox’s interim manager Chad Tracy said. “That’s a definite, especially at that point in the game. It’s been a bit since we’ve scored.”

The rough dive Wells made to field the throw and tag Rafaela at one go deserves appreciation, and it proved one more time why Wells’ absence could spell doom for the Yankees more than just an offensive meltdown.