WASHINGTON — It is important that Cade Cavalli express remorse, which he has. It is more important that he and the Washington Nationals fully understand why he should.Cavalli, the Nationals’ budding star right-hander, is appealing the seven-game suspension that he and Boston’s Willson Contreras both received Thursday for their individual roles in the benches-clearing run-in at Fenway Park on Tuesday evening. After Cavalli struck out Contreras in the third inning of Washington’s 8-1 victory, he shouted at Contreras, “sit down, boy!” After Cavalli followed by twice saying “you heard me!”, Contreras took offense, charged the mound, and both benches cleared.Nationals pitcher Miles Mikolas, who grabbed Contreras during the altercation, got a five-game suspension, while Boston interim manager Chad Tracy, who grabbed Mikolas, leading to the two of them grappling, got a three-game suspension.Cavalli, apparently, has said that phrase to lots of people he’s struck out over the years during his climb up the ranks. That includes White guys. Contreras, though, is Venezuelan. The historical connotation of a White man calling a man of color “boy,” no matter how competitive that man might be, is not cool. It doesn’t matter if your White dad said it to you when you were a kid. The history of this nation is riddled with White people using the term “boy” to infantilize Black men of all ages and all achievements, to make them feel less than equal. Nor is it something that happened in the long-ago past, a relic of history.And ignorance — or, in the case of some people and/or bots on social media, denial that this is a thing at all — is not an excuse.“It’s been a tough couple of days,” Cavalli said in the Nationals’ clubhouse Friday afternoon before the Nats played the Pirates. “It’s been tough to sleep. Just never thought in a million years that I’d be in this situation. I know where my heart is. I’ve learned that people around me know where my heart is. The unwavering support from my teammates, my family, this staff, I’m just very grateful for them. It’s … it’s been hard.”No one doubts that. No one wants to be labeled as racist or racially insensitive. I don’t know anything about Cavalli’s upbringing other than he’s from Oklahoma. Regardless, Cavalli isn’t the victim here.Keith Law's Big Board for the 2026 MLB DraftKeith LawContreras, to be sure, didn’t cover himself in glory during all this, either. Earlier in Tuesday’s game, he cut across the diamond after making the third out and nearly ran into Cavalli, who was leaving the mound.The baseball online reporter Jimmy O’Brien, known as Jomboy, who has excelled over the years at reading players’ and managers’ lips during and after confrontations, said in a post that he’d gone back and looked at every play since 2020 at Fenway where a runner on second rounded third as the final out of a half-inning ended, to see if anyone else had cut across the field in the pitcher’s path as Contreras did. Then he looked at every out of Contreras’ career when he’d previously been rounding third when the final out was recorded, to see if he’d done it before. For what it’s worth, Jomboy said no other runner had done so since ’20 at Fenway, and Contreras had never done it in his career until Tuesday.To be sure: MLB’s discipline for players involved in non-fighting incidents seems to follow no particular pattern. One can ask why Cavalli’s words warranted a seven-game suspension and five-figure fine, when the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong was fined just $5,000 and not suspended after yelling a vulgar epithet at a female fan who told him “you suck” during a game in May. Or why then-Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel was only suspended for the first five games of the 2018 season and ordered to undergo sensitivity training after making a racist gesture towards Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish during the 2017 World Series.I don’t think race was front of mind in Cavalli’s head when he said what he said; competing at the highest level in the world was. But, words matter. They can enlighten, inspire — and enrage. And that’s why this can be, and should be, a teachable moment.The Nationals should not leave their young pitcher to figure out the best way to move forward by himself. This is something the organization, from its top, needs to lead, and to show it’s still serious about being a good steward in the city it’s called home since 2005.Cavalli is not some call-up from Rochester, here to eat innings. He’s a potential ace, and he showed it in Boston on Tuesday, dominating the Red Sox through seven powerful innings, retiring the last 19 batters and striking out 13. Per Fangraphs, Cavalli was tied for 19th among pitchers going into Friday’s games in WAR at 2.1 — tied, ironically, with Washington’s previous hope for a No. 1 starter, MacKenzie Gore, now in Texas. Cavalli could be up for a pretty large payday after 2027, when he is eligible for arbitration.He’s worked his tail off since undergoing Tommy John surgery three years ago, doing exactly what he said he’d do – attack his rehab diligently to reclaim the place the Nats thought he’d assume when they took him in the first round of the 2020 MLB Draft. There’s a reason Blake Butera named him the Opening Day starter.But this is about what kind of team the Nationals plan to be, in a city unlike others with Major League Baseball teams.Of course, the team and its players are visible throughout the community, giving their time to various charity events and causes throughout the year. The Nationals’ Youth Baseball Academy in Southeast, a staple since 2013, is a wonderful venue for both boys’ baseball teams in middle and high schools, and for girls’ softball teams. But this incident gives the organization a chance to dig even deeper into the community.It’s hard to do during the season, of course, when off days are scarce. But the offseason could provide Cavalli a chance to be a more regular presence in the community. Across South Capitol Street, where Nationals Park is built, there is a neighborhood full of people of color. Having real and repeated connections with a Nationals player like Cavalli could connect the team more with the people closest to it.Cavalli could also work with local schools or colleges on programs that make the real racial history of places like Tulsa, Okla., the site of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, more accessible to more people. The Nats could contribute resources toward such endeavors.The Nats’ new president of baseball operations, Paul Toboni, said in a statement Friday, “This has obviously been a tough couple of days on Cade. I’ve been around a lot of people in this game, whether it’s players, coaches, or front-office personnel, and in terms of character and values, Cade is right there at the top. I’m also proud of how he’s handled this situation specifically; he’s learned from it, in large part because he’s thoughtful, humble, and empathetic. Maybe most importantly, anyone who knows Cade knows this: he really cares about being a good person.”Washington isn’t Chocolate City anymore. The city’s residents are now almost evenly split between Black and White residents. But this is still a city of color. There are longtime, native Black American families here, to be sure. But there are Latinos, and immigrants from Europe and Africa. And there are White people. Most of all of them want to feel welcome and comfortable at Nats Park, and feel comfortable cheering for the team and its rising young star pitcher.There are very few Major League teams whose two biggest stars are young, African-American men, like the Nationals’ James Wood and CJ Abrams. The Nats have fans of all colors, of course. But Black kids in the DMV, who are seeing a small uptick in the number of players that look like them in MLB dugouts after decades of decline, surely take particular pride in what Wood and Abrams do — and rep the Nats hard. As the parent of a teenager who played four years of center field in DCIAA baseball, and loved every second of it, this hits home.This isn’t about religion or politics. What Cavalli thinks about God, or which lever he pulls in the voting booth, are none of my business. But people who put on uniforms in this town that say “Washington” across the chest need to know that word means something, both to people who look like Cavalli, and those who do not.So I asked Cavalli about how he hoped to better represent the city going forward.“I always want to reflect my heart, and who I am,” Cavalli said. “And the way I want to carry myself is (with) love. I compete, and I want to be a part of the community that I’m in. I want them to know that I love this city. I love playing here. I love the group of guys around me. I love the staff that we’ve brought in. It’s been an incredible change. And I want to be reflective of this organization in the highest way possible. And when I’m on the field, I want to give us a chance to win the ballgame every single time. That’s why I play this game. Anything that I find my hands doing, I’m going to do with all my might.“The thought of being the (front-facing guy), it doesn’t necessarily cross my head. I want to be part of this team. I care about what we do over the course of 162 games, and getting to October. And I just want to be one of the guys.”Butera, Friday, agreed that this could be a moment to learn, even if it gets uncomfortable.“He’s been struggling these last few days,” Butera said of Cavalli. “It’s been hard on him. He made a mistake; he knows that. His family’s felt it, also. Just the conversations we’ve had with him, the conversations he’s had with his teammates, the type of person Cade is, I think that’s the hardest thing. The type of person he is, I’d be more concerned if this wasn’t hurting him as much as it is hurting him.”On Monday, it will be a year since the Nationals fired former GM Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez. With Toboni and Butera leading the way, they’ve had a wildly unexpected first half of the season. They’re in the wild-card hunt. They’ve gotten monster production from Wood and Abrams, and surprising lifts from the likes of Foster Griffin and Curtis Mead. The farm system, which looked so fallow a year ago, is showing many of the same signs of revitalization as the parent club. As the All-Star break nears, Washington’s new leadership has much of which it can justly be proud.Taking the lead in helping Cavalli mature, in ways that have nothing to do with his stuff, would be among their most important and lasting works.