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New York Mets: Matt Harvey reacts to Chase Utley slide

By Nick Ziegler

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The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night in Game 2 of the NLDS, but all the talk has been about a controversial play at second base.

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In the seventh inning, Chase Utley went in very hard to second base in order to break up a double play. The unfortunate part of the play was that Mets’ shortstop Ruben Tejada was in a vulnerable position on the throw from Daniel Murphy.

Tejada had his back to Utley at the time of the slide and that led to a scary collision which resulted in a broken leg for Tejada.

“I think history has kind of shown that he’s kind of been in situations like that before,” Harvey said to Mike Vorkunov of NJ.com. “I know personally, you know, after watching in 2010 and hearing about it with Ruben as well, you know, there’s some situations that need to be taken care of. I think the League is going to do their best to do that and take charge.

“As far as where we were, it was kind of hard to see at first, you know, where exactly the slide started. But after obviously the replay, everybody saw that it was more of a tackle than anything. We’re all feeling for Ruben. We’re going to pick him up, and you know, we’re excited to be back at home.”

Harvey was certainly one of the most vocal Mets to take offense to the slide or tackle as Harvey later called it by Utley. In a season that has seen Harvey lose some respect from the fans of the Mets with his situation about his innings not long ago, this was a nice thing to see him defend his teammate.

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“Obviously there were rules in place regarding people hitting the catcher,” Harvey said to Vorkunov. “So I think that the League is going to do their job to look over protecting our second basemen and shortstops in this game and, you know, keep from slides like that — or tackles like that yesterday.”

Harvey isn’t the only person to believe that there has to be something done to protect middle infielders like the recent rule change to protect catchers from being run over by base runners. It’s hard to imagine a rule change for takeout slides into second base, as it is a huge part of the game and has been for 100 years.

The loss in Game 2 wasn’t a crushing blow to the Mets, as they were able to upset Clayton Kershaw in Game 1. Harvey will be pitching in a huge game on Monday with the series even at 1-1. This is a game the Mets need with Harvey on the mound going against Brett Anderson.

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