Mets upset about Utley's takeout slide

PHILADELPHIA - If the Mets played as tough as they talked in the wake of Friday's 3-2 loss to the Phillies, things might have turned out differently this season.

After Chase Utley crushed Ruben Tejada with a violent takeout slide on a fifth-inning double play, the Mets howled from the bench at the All-Star second baseman and later suggested that Utley could be a marked man for the remainder of the weekend series at Citizens Bank Park.

"Chase plays the game hard, he plays the game passionately," David Wright said, "but there's a thin line between going out there and playing the game hard and going out there and trying to get somebody hurt. Nobody's going to go and push us around.

"I think cooler heads prevailed, but we've got to let them know on our side we didn't appreciate it. We're going to go out there and have our teammates' backs."

Tejada, 20, is generously listed at 5-11, 160 pounds in the Mets' media guide, and Utley flipped him like a rag doll on the inning-ending double play. Tejada said Utley asked him after the collision if he was OK. Tejada remained in the game until Chris Carter replaced him as a pinch hitter in the eighth.

For a team that claimed to be furious over the play, the Mets never took a shot at Utley, either on the basepaths or at the plate. Wright said they were ready to move on, but added they will "re-evaluate the way that we go into second base" for the rest of the weekend.

Jose Reyes, one of Tejada's closer friends on the team, also took issue with the slide.

"I think it was a little dirty," Reyes said. "He slid right on top of the base. He didn't need to do that there. You can blow out somebody's knee. I was a little bit [angry] because I think he crossed the line a little bit."

When Reyes was asked if he had ever been hammered that hard, he smiled and said, "Thank God, no."

Utley did not make himself available for comment after Friday's game, but his slide spoke volumes about the lopsided rivalry between these two clubs. While the Phillies continue to act like the baseball incarnation of the Broad Street Bullies, the Mets behave more like a piñata. That's why Philadelphia is steamrolling toward its fourth straight playoff appearance and the Mets are headed home for October again.

"If you deem as a team that it's a dirty play, then you should take action, absolutely," starter R.A. Dickey said. "You've got to protect your teammates for one, and you got to show the other team that you're not going to roll over for them and let them step on your neck.

"That's just part of the game, any game, at this level. You don't want to ever be a team that has the reputation that you can be kicked around and you're going to go back to the dugout at the end of the game with your tail between your legs."

The Mets have two games to prove that Dickey's words are more than just talk.

"If he wants guys sliding like that into him, then it's perfectly fine," Wright said. "It's a legal slide. It's within the rules. But somebody's going to get hurt, so I guess that's a better question for him. If he doesn't mind guys coming like that after him, then everything's good."