What happened to Ruben Tejada was awful. What happened to this division series was great.
A matchup that looked interesting before it began looks fascinating now. And Matt Harvey hasn't even pitched yet.
Harvey will take the mound for the New York Mets on Monday night in the first postseason game ever at Citi Field. By then, perhaps we'll all be able to agree on what happened in Saturday's Game 2 between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Don't count on it.
As Ron Darling said to Cal Ripken Jr. on TBS, it's OK if we disagree.
It's OK, if more than a little surprising, that the Hall of Fame shortstop in the booth was defending a guy (Chase Utley) who just broke the leg of a shortstop (Tejada). It's OK that the Dodgers and their fans saw a guy breaking up a double play to try to tie the game, and the Mets and their fans saw a guy sliding high and dangerously late.
And it's more than OK that this best-of-five series heads to New York even at one victory apiece, after the Dodgers' 5-2 win. I'm always fine if any division series goes to a Game 5, but this one has to.
We're going to be talking about it for years. We might as well get to watch it for another five days.
The immediate focus will be on Utley and Tejada, and my buddy Scott Miller is dealing with that and all the consequences elsewhere on this site. Suffice it to say it's terrible Tejada ended up with a fractured right fibula, and at the very least questionable that Utley's slide was (or should be) legal.
Mets fans already hated Utley and his fellow former Philadelphia Phillie Jimmy Rollins, simply for making their lives miserable in the National League East. Now they're even angrier, and Mets players might be joining them.
Anthony DiComo of MLB.com tweeted David Wright's reaction:
The Mets can't forget about the play, but they'd better be able to move on from what happened after it. The Dodgers tied the game when Utley wiped out Tejada, but the Mets lost it when Adrian Gonzalez followed with a two-run double off Addison Reed. Justin Turner followed with another double off Reed to plate the fifth run.
So two games into the series, the Mets' setup men—Reed and Tyler Clippard—have faced seven batters and allowed four hits, three of them for extra bases. The Dodgers have scored six runs in the series, and four of them came with either Reed or Clippard on the mound.
And the key moment in Friday's Game 1 came when Dodgers manager Don Mattingly pulled Clayton Kershaw and watched reliever Pedro Baez surrender David Wright's two-run single.
The bullpens are a huge issue, on both sides. The pitching decisions by the two managers will remain a huge issue, on both sides.
Will either team bring its Game 1 starter back on short rest for Tuesday's Game 4? Both teams were considering it when the series began.
Kershaw still hangs over the rest of this series, whether the Dodgers use him Tuesday or save him for Game 5. Jacob deGrom still hangs over the rest of this series, because he was so brilliant for the Mets when he beat Kershaw in Game 1.
If the Dodgers start Kershaw in Game 4 and Zack Greinke (on regular rest) in Game 5, the Mets will need to beat one of them to win the series. But with the Game 3 matchup of Harvey and Brett Anderson seemingly tilted in the Mets' favor, the Dodgers may well need wins from both Kershaw and Greinke to advance.
The one thing we know for sure is that Tejada won't play in whatever games remain, terrible news for him but not necessarily disastrous for the Mets. His replacement, Wilmer Flores, is a step down defensively but a more dangerous hitter.
Flores already played a starring role in this Mets season when he cried on the field the night he thought he had been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for Carlos Gomez. The deal didn't go through, of course; the Mets instead got Yoenis Cespedes from the Detroit Tigers, and Flores became a Citi Field folk hero.
Now he will fill in for Tejada, with a chance to write another chapter in that story. And another chapter in the already wild story of a division series that needs to go five games.
Think there'll be enough to talk about?
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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