BOSTON — Boston Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras was tossed for a second straight game on Tuesday after throwing his helmet toward Washington Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli during a heated exchange that ended with the benches clearing and multiple ejections.

Cavalli struck out Contreras looking on a full-count pitch in the top of the fourth of what eventually became an 8-1 victory by the Nationals. The 27-year-old right-hander then shouted at Contreras as Contreras made his way back to the Boston dugout.

Red Sox manager Chad Tracy said he heard Cavalli yell “Sit down, boy” after fanning Contreras.

Asked what his specific words to Contreras were, Cavalli told reporters, “I don’t know. I just lose my head in it. I’m competitive. I just told him to sit down.”

The term “boy” has a racially charged history in the U.S. Contreras, who is Venezuelan, demurred when asked if he felt there was a racial component to Cavalli’s word choice.

“To be honest, I don’t know,” Contreras said, later adding he plans to “let MLB handle that.”

Cavalli apologized Wednesday for shouting the comment.

“I’m extremely torn up about the way that things were perceived,” Cavalli said. “Obviously, there was no ill intention behind that.”

When asked, he said he understands the meaning behind the word used.

“There’s a history behind that word, and that’s just something that as a competitor, like in football or basketball, playing whiffle ball with my brother, you don’t understand it,” Cavalli said. “And then it gets perceived in a way that was not my intention, and then you learn from that. It’ll never happen again.”

The 27-year-old right-hander said he didn’t realize the public outcry on social media until he got back to his hotel room.

“I looked at my phone, and I saw what people were saying about me. Saw how torn up my wife was. It hurt my heart,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. Because I know that people know me, and they know my character, and that’s not me. So, it was hard. I truly didn’t sleep last night.”

Contreras, who hit a three-run homer off Washington’s Miles Mikolas on Monday and celebrated with a massive bat flip that he later apologized for, approached Cavalli on the mound after the incident Tuesday. The two jawed at each other as both dugouts emptied.

“He struck me on a good pitch, I was walking back to the dugout, and then he did what he did, and the rest was history,” Contreras told reporters afterward, later adding, “He was like, instigating, and I snapped.”

Boston catcher Carlos Narvaez tried to hold Contreras back, but Contreras broke loose long enough to leap and throw his batting helmet in Cavalli’s direction.

Things settled down quickly after that, though the brief dustup ended with Contreras, Tracy, Boston outfielder Nate Eaton and Mikolas being ejected.

Cavalli pointed to an incident at the end of the top of the first when Contreras nearly ran into the pitcher as both exited the field as the spark that set things in motion.

“He’s just been doing stuff,” Cavalli said of Contreras. “In the first inning, he just runs past me and brushes me. It’s just something you don’t do in baseball. I think he knows that. I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him. And a few words were said after the strikeout. It’s part of the game. And he’s going to let everybody run out there and try and do whatever he does, throw a helmet and get himself tossed.”

Cavalli stayed in the game and allowed one run on one hit with 13 strikeouts over seven innings in what became an 8-1 romp.

“After everything that happened, the people that they chose that were going to leave the game, I just felt like the other pitcher should have been one of them too,” Tracy said. “That was my biggest complaint.”

The early exit was the second in as many nights for Contreras, the first time that’s happened to a Red Sox player in the club’s 126-year history. The 34-year-old Venezuela native — who acknowledged he is having a difficult time while his native country tries to recover from a pair of devastating earthquakes last week — was ejected in the second inning on Monday for mimicking an appeal call after striking out on a checked swing.

“I feel like everything is against me right now,” Contreras said. “I got ejected last night for nothing. I got ejected today even though I was walking back to the dugout.”