One of the interesting subplots to the 2016 season was going to be when Chase Utley stepped into the batter’s box against the Mets. One of the young Mets hurlers was going to have a chance to plunk Utley as retribution for what he did to their teammate, Ruben Tejada.
The problem is Tejada is no longer a Met. He’s now with the St. Louis Cardinals. He’s off trying to help some other team try to win a World Series. When the Cardinals face the Dodgers, I’m sure it’ll be news that Utley and Tejada are facing each other for the first time since the NLDS. However, I doubt that Cardinals pitchers will be expected to exact revenge upon Utley for something that didn’t happen while Tejada was wearing a Cards uniform.
Do the Mets have it in their minds to retaliate and plunk Utley? The message here is you went out and injured one of our own on a dirty play. We don’t care if Tejada is wearing another uniform or not, we will still stand up for our guys. It would send a message that the 2016 New York Mets will not back down to anybody. It’s a message that if you go after one of our players, we’ll go after one of yours.
At the time of the incident, manager Terry Collins seemingly reserved the right to retaliate next season but not during the postseason because the stakes were too high.
“I’ve had my conversation with Matt Harvey,” Collins said before Game 3 of the NLDS. “We’re not throwing at anybody. We’ll worry about this stuff at another date. Right now, this is a big game for us.”
When Harvey said he was “going to do the right thing” when asked if he would retaliate, it prompted a meeting with Collins who impressed on him that the team could not afford to lose him and not to retaliate. You may recall that Harvey famously plunked Utley for retaliation once before and then stared him down when he was with the Phillies.
And this offseason, while playing golf with Utley, Mets reliever Erik Goeddel said, “Utley knows how mad the Mets were after that play. He understands. He definitely knows there is something coming,” Goeddel said. “He said ‘Just don’t peg me in the head.’ So he knows.”’
While some Mets might still be upset over the play, at the time David Wright, Michael Cuddyer and Noah Syndergaard were very outspoken in addition to Matt Harvey. But Ruben Tejada is a Cardinal now. Does that change anything? Please vote in our poll.
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