The Seventh Inning

The bottom of the seventh inning was a disaster for the Mets last night. First of all, I seriously question why Noah Syndergaard started the inning in the first place. He had already thrown 101 pitches, it was the 7th inning, and Terry Collins had pretty much his entire bullpen at his disposal, having used only Clippard and Familia on Friday and with an off-day today. Granted, Syndergaard did strike out Yasmani Grandal, but Collins should have yanked him after the walk to Kike Hernandez. Instead, he let him face Utley, and that's where all the trouble started.

Despite Syndergaard's efforts to keep him on first base, Hernandez ended up stealing second base, and the now distracted and tired pitcher gave up a single to Utley. At which point Collins had no choice but to go to the bullpen. For the life of me, however, I can not understand why he went to Bartolo Colon. In a 1-run game, with runners on first and third and 1 out, what the Mets really needed was a strikeout. I don't care that Howie Kendrick was 2-for-22 against Colon; you don't put in a guy with 6.3 SO/9 who'd only made two relief appearances all year.

So no one should be surprised that Kendrick made contact. Daniel Murphy flipped the ball to Ruben Tejada at second base, at which point the game lost all sense of logic. While the run comes in to score, Utley barrels into Tejada as he is turning around to throw to first base. Utley is called out, and Tejada finds himself on the ground unable to get up.

As the delay continues for several minutes, Don Mattingly eventually comes out of the dugout to challenge the out-call at second base. (I seriously question whether the Dodgers would have challenged without this delay.) After review, Utley is called safe. (Which by the way wasn't really that clear of an overturn in my opinion.) This is inexplicable for several reasons. First, and most obviously, he never touched second base. The MLB's rationale that the umpire can award him the base because the call was wrong is total BS. Utley didn't miss second base because the umpire called him out; he never even made an attempt to touch second base because he knew he would be called out. That play at second base by Tejada, even if it wasn't technically a "neighborhood play", has pretty much always been called an out through baseball history. If Utley actually thought he had a chance to be safe he would have, you know, slid into second base. But he didn't. Plain and simple. Instead, Utley is essentially rewarded for taking out Tejada (note that Tejada never had an opportunity to attempt to tag Utley even if he didn't touch second base, while Utley went straight to the dugout even though he had ample opportunity to touch the bag.)

At the very least, Utley should have been called out, the game would have been tied, and the inning would have ended when Addison Reed got the next batter to fly out to left. But the inning continued, and the Dodgers ended up scoring three more runs (including one by Utley) to take a 5-2 lead. A completely deflated Mets team, who then learned that Ruben Tejada had broken his leg, had no chance after that.

And now, this morning, I see this rule:

"Rule 6.05 reads:

A batter is out when --

(m) A preceding runner shall, in the umpire's judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play:

Rule 6.05(m) Comment: The objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate, unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner in leaving the baseline for the obvious purpose of crashing the pivot man on a double play, rather than trying to reach the base. Obviously this is an umpire's judgment play."

and this one:

"Rule 7.09:

It is interference by a batter or a runner when --

(e) If, in the judgment of the umpire, a base runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball with the obvious intent to break up a double play, the ball is dead. The umpire shall call the runner out for interference and also call out the batter-runner because of the action of his teammate. In no event may bases be run or runs scored because of such action by a runner."

Rules like these are designed to protect players from things like, I don't know, HAVING THEIR LEG BROKEN when someone leaves the baseline to break up a double play. Which is exactly what Utley did. He knew he was out at second, so he never even tried to reach second base. He "slid" (which is probably a generous term anyways) exceptionally late, when he was already parallel to the bag.

Clearly both of these rules should have applied. Take your pick. So, in reality, Utley should have been called out, Kendrick should have been called out, Hernandez should never have scored, and the game should have gone to the eighth inning with the Mets up 2-1.

And still, none of that would have changed the fact that Chase Utley broke Ruben Tejada's leg. Honestly, the worst part of this whole thing is that Utley didn't even have to do what he did. If he had just slid into second base, Kendrick almost certainly would have been safe anyway. Tejada would have had to make an essentially impossible throw to get him out at first base. And while Utley would have initially been called out, the Dodgers might still have challenged and gotten the call legitimately overturned. So the outcome would have been the same.

Except Ruben Tejada would not have a broken leg.