Noah Syndergaard was ejected without warning for throwing behind Chase Utley in the third inning. Utley retaliated with two home runs – including a grand slam – as the Dodgers won 9-1.

Mets Finally Retaliate Against Utley

After Chase Utley slid past the base and broke Ruben Tejada’s leg in last year’s playoffs, people wondered when the Mets would retaliate against Utley. The Dodgers used Utley as a pinch hitter for the rest of the playoffs and to start the 2016 season series. Jacob deGrom didn’t retaliate in Los Angeles. Neither did Syndergaard the next night. Instead of asking when, Mets fans started asking if the team would retaliate. Then came Saturday, the on-field reunion for the 1986 World Series championship team. Citi Field rocked with chants of “Utley sucks!” once again as he stepped in to lead off the game. Some fans were clearly hoping for a throwback approach to Utley and Syndergaard came out firing a series of 99-100 mph fastballs and hard sliders. It looked like he was going to “retaliate” by overpowering the Dodgers. Then he started Utley’s second at bat with a 99 mile per hour fastball behind the butt.

Syndergaard was immediately ejected by home plate umpire Adam Hamari. Terry Collins bolted out of the dugout to argue and was ejected himself. People will certainly debate whether or not Syndergaard’s pitch and ejection were warranted. It’s not clear whether the Mets received a special pregame warning about throwing at Utley or whether Hamari was using his jurisdiction more aggressively than most baseball umpires.

Still a Game to Play

Syndergaard was ejected with one out and no score in the third inning. After all the emotions of the 1986 reunion and then the ejection, the Mets had to find a way to keep the crowd in the game. But first they had to find a pitcher. Collins’ long argument helped buy enough time for Logan Verrett to warm up. He stepped in to a 1-0 count and threw three strikes past Utley, then retired Corey Seager to end the inning. The umpires warned Dodgers’ starter Kenta Maeda before the bottom of the inning. He had a quick inning striking out Verrett and then getting two groundouts. Los Angeles came close to getting action on the scoreboard in the fourth inning as former Met Justin Turner hit a leadoff double and advanced to third. Verrett made a snap throw back to third on a comebacker to catch Turner in a rundown. Joc Pederson then lined out to Neil Walker who was playing in short right field on a shift (Walker had several great defensive plays from this position).

Utley Gets His Revenge

When Utley came up for his next at bat in the sixth inning, everyone wondered what would happen: Would Verrett finish the job and actually hit Utley? This time Utley did the hitting, driving the first pitch over the right-center field wall for the first run of the game. Verrett was in his fourth inning of relief and the Dodgers began to tee off on location mistakes. Yasiel Puig (entering after a back injury to Trayce Thompson) hit a single and then got in a rundown to help Adrian Gonzalez chug around the bases for the Dodgers’ second run.

The Mets turned to Antonio Bastardo for the seventh inning and it quickly got out of hand. Pederson hit a leadoff double. Howie Kendrick singled and stole second after being completely ignored. Yasmani Grandal walked. Hansel Robles came in to strike out Kiké Hernandez. Utley stepped up to the plate. Before the first Dodgers-Mets game of the season we offered many options for the biggest Mets villain. Utley did his best to try and end the debate about Mets history’s greatest monster, hitting a grand slam to make it 6-0. The sellout crowd was completely deflated by the stoic Utley and the Mets largely went through the motions for the rest of the game. Los Angeles hit two more home runs against Robles in the eighth and one against Jim Herderson in the ninth, becoming the second team to ever hit five home runs in Citi Field. Juan Lagares provided the Mets one bright spot in the eighth with a pinch-hit home run.

Mets Baffled by Maeda

After one inning, it looked like Maeda would be the pitcher leaving the game early. Michael Conforto hit a line drive up the middle and Maeda put his pitching hand down instinctually to protect himself. It bounced hard off the back of his hand for an infield hit, but the pitcher stayed in the game for 75 pitches, going just long enough to qualify for a win. The Mets couldn’t manage another hit as the Japanese right-hander kept throwing first pitch curveballs that dropped in to the strike zone. Curtis Granderson and Conforto both hit balls sharply off of Adam Liberatore in the sixth but couldn’t get them to fall.

Trade For James Loney

The Mets traded for veteran first baseman James Loney before yesterday’s game, giving cash to San Diego. Loney had an opt-out clause in his contract if the Padres didn’t promote him to the majors by June 1. The Rays are still paying most of Loney’s salary after releasing him at the end of Spring Training, making it a “nothing to lose” trade for the Mets. Loney and Wilmer Flores will probably platoon at first base while Lucas Duda is out. On more on what Loney could bring to the Mets, see fearless leader Bryan Grosnick’s in-depth piece from earlier this week.

What’s Next?

The Mets play Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN2, with Bartolo Colon facing Clayton Kershaw.

Photo credit: Andy Marlin – USA Today Sports

The Mets are currently in Los Angeles midst a four-game matchup against the Dodgers, marking the first time this season they’ll come face-to-face with second baseman Chase Utley. Utley, executor of the controversial slide that broke Ruben Tejada’s fibula and incited Major League Baseball to institute new guidelines for sliding into second, is bound to catch some flak from Mets’ fans, if not this week, then certainly when the Mets and Dodgers meet again at Citi Field on May 27th. For me, Utley will always exist in my mind’s eye in Phillies uniform. So while he inspired this week’s staff post featuring an array of infamous Mets villains, I set my noogie-headed sights on the City of Brotherly Love.

The Phillie Phanatic—an obese, pants-less furry alien with a party blower for a tongue—is objectively terrifying, and so earns him the number one Mets villain spot on this list. Here are nine other (human) Philadelphia-based antiheros, in chronological order from their appearances on the team:

Jim Bunning (1964-67; 1970-71) Okay, so perhaps Bunning is not exactly a villain—the Mets were in last place for nearly all of his time with the Phillies in the sixties (though they beat out the Cubs to take ninth in ’66). But the Hall of Famer did pitch a perfect game against the Mets during a double-header at Shea Stadium on Father’s Day, 1964. Father’s Day, guys. It was the first perfect game in the National League in 84 years, and the first no-hitter from a Phillies pitcher since 1906. A New York Times headline later dubbed the Mets the “perfect victims” for the feat, noting that even Queens had begun rooting for Bunning by the end of the game. Though the turning of Mets’ fans against the team speaks more to the dismal state of the organization at the time, part of me reads it as a stroke evil genius; the Phillies also won the second game of the matchup that day.

Mike Schmidt (1972-1989) Another a Hall of Famer, Schmidt spent his entire major league career with the Phillies, where he won 10 Gold Glove Awards, was a 12-time All-Star, and a three-time National League MVP. He also hit 49 home runs during his 268 games against the Mets, second only to Willie Stargell for most career home runs against the team (Stargell had 60). Of Schmidt, Pete Rose is quoted as saying, “To have his body, I’d trade him mine and my wife’s, and I’d throw in some cash.” If Schmidt could inspire such admiration from a Mets villain like Rose, you know his powers were vast.

Tug McGraw (1975-1984) McGraw was a Met from 1965-74, though his best work came as a reliever from 1967 onward. He played his first postseason game with the 1969 Mets, holding the Braves at bay in Game 2 of the NLDS. McGraw’s heart seemed firmly tethered to Shea at the time—he said of that season, “everything changed for me in 1969, the year we turned out to be goddamn amazing.” In 1973 he coined the phrase “Ya Gotta Believe!” and the Mets went on play in the World Series in a decade when the NL East was otherwise swept by the Pirates and Phillies. “Ya Gotta Believe!” was a slogan that stuck, so undoubtedly it burned a bit extra when McGraw was traded to Philadelphia, threw the out that clinched their 1980 World Series victory, then told New Yorkers to “take this championship and shove it.”

Pete Rose (1979-83) He’s most loathed for his time with the Reds (see: 1973 Game 3 NLCS Harrelson-Rose brawl), but Rose also saw several successful seasons with the Phillies. In 1979 Philadelphia, Rose (who, upon signing had become the highest paid player in baseball at the time) still had some Big Red heat in him—he averaged a strong .331 but was even better as a Mets opponent, batting .446, with 29 hits in 18 games. With Rose on the team, the Phillies won three division titles and the 1980 World Series, returning to the World Series again in 1983 before losing to Baltimore.

Pat Burrell (2000-2008) If I had to choose just one of these guys to embody the Mets-Phillies rivalry, it would probably be Pat the Bat. While Burrell’s career batting average is nearly in line with his average against the Mets, he ranks seventh in career home runs against the Mets with 42 in 162 games, approaching double his career average of 24.3 home runs per season. Burrell’s most egregious villainy is visible in his 2002 stats, where he averaged .282 with a slugging percentage of .544 overall, while against the 2002 Mets he averaged .373 with a SLG of .791, leading the Phillies to season series victories against the Mets in 2002 (10-9) and 2003 (12-7). Burrell also took part in a run of heated exchanges with Phillies-turned-Mets closer Billy Wagner, one of which involved Burrell calling Wagner a rat. Before moving on to San Francisco, Burrell went out on a Phillies high note in the 2008 World Series.

Jimmy Rollins (2000-2014)  He’s the Phillies all-time hits leader, so that alone should earn him a spot on the list, though he has many other accolades to his name: three-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove Award Winner, NL stolen base leader in 2001, 2007 Silver Slugger Award. And, speaking of Silver Sluggers, like Curtis Granderson, Rollins is one of only four MLB players to ever join the 20-20-20-20 club. Rollins’ .280 average against the Mets is slightly above his career average of .265, but he hit 30 home runs and stole 62 bases against the Mets over 241 games with Philadelphia. He also caused a notorious media stir in early 2007, declaring that the Mets had blown their chance and the Phillies were the team to beat in the NL East—the fact that Rollins’s prediction came true as the Mets disintegrated into “the second greatest collapse in MLB history” is certainly salt in the Rollins-shaped wound.

Chase Utley (2003-2015) Utley was a foundational member of the Phillies at their height, in particular providing key hits during their races to the top of the NL East in 2007-08, and so can probably be counted a Mets villain just for that. That, or the 35 home runs he’s hit against the Mets over the years, a personal record against a single team. His batting average against the Mets holds steady with his career average, though his slugging and OBP are slightly elevated as a Mets opponent. All this, combined with the aforementioned slide, means I get just a bit more pleasure than is healthy from watching Harvey take a shot at him last April.

Ryan Howard (2004-present) The only current Philadelphia player on the list, at first glance it appears that Howard plays on or slightly below-par as a Mets opponent—his career average is .261, with .347 OBP and .511 slugging percentage, while against the Mets he averages .245 with a .321 OBP and .500 slugging. But then there’s the matter of the 46 home runs he’s hit against New York in 172 games. The 46th home run came this April at Citi Field against Colón, propelling Howard past Hank Aaron for fifth place in career home runs against the Mets, and proving he remains a Mets threat at age 36.

Jamie Moyer (2006-2010) Moyer is another player whose impact feels less direct than some of the other big-moment thwarts on this list, but the frustrating thing about “the crafty lefty” was that he came to the Phillies at the end of his career, amassing all kinds of Bartoloesque records in those final years—oldest active MLB player, last active player to have played in the 1980s, MLB player with the most wins and strikeouts, and oldest player to hit an RBI—yet still managed to be a thorn in the Mets’ side. Case in point: after spiraling out in 2007, the Mets faced the Phillies at the 2008 home opener (the last home opener at Shea) and a 45-year-old Moyer started and took the win. It was a sign of the season, as the Mets came in second in the NL East behind the Phillies, who went on to win the World Series. Moyer also has two sons, shortstop Dillon and second-baseman Hutton, both currently in the minors; I’m marking them now as potential Mets villains of the future.

Photo Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Chase Utley

It’s funny that Chase Utley will now be best remembered by Mets fans for a moment during which he was wearing something other than a Phillies uniform. I might have been able to include Utley here for all of the damage he did during his tenure in Philadelphia. He has slugged 35 homers against the Mets, his most against any team. His former teammates Ryan Howard (45) and Pat Burrell (42) have hit more against the Mets, but Utley always felt like the heart and soul of the Phillies during their successful NL East run from 2007-2011.

If exorcising demons is your thing, it was appropriate that the Mets would run into longtime foes Utley and Jimmy Rollins in last year’s NLDS against the Dodgers. However, it was no longer cute when Utley made a reckless “slide” —  really, a rolling block — into Ruben Tejada in Game 2. And somehow, after a replay review and Tejada getting carted off the field with a broken leg, Utley was allowed to stay at second base (despite never touching it during play). The slide tackle changed the game’s complexion and clinched Utley’s status as an all-time Mets Villain.

With the series shifting back to New York for Game 3, Citi Field was going to be bonkers even if the Utley play hadn’t happened. Mets fans waited nine long, frustrating years for the postseason to return to Queens. But the Utley situation ramped up the energy and intensity. As I sat in the stands at Citi Field during player introductions, it felt like the stadium had finally arrived. It was as if Utley had knocked something loose in all of us. It was our home, at long last. And we were happy to let him know it. — D.J. Short (@djshort)

Derek Jeter

You can make an easy statistical case for Derek Jeter, Mets Villain. His .364 batting average (131-for-360) is third-best all time for players with at least 100 at-bats against the Mets. Indeed, that .364 batting average was Jeter’s highest against any team (minimum 40 at-bats). As shown in the chart below, Jeter’s OPS against the Mets, as compared to his performance against all other teams, ranks 11th in history.

(Huh. Omar Infante. Who knew?)

Superlative regular-season and even World Series statistics aside (in the 2000 Subway Series, Jeter hit .409 and a certain home run, winning the Series MVP), Jeter is a Mets Villain because he represents a paradigm shift in New York baseball fandom. Before Jeter — and, thus, before his team reached the playoffs every year from 1995 through 2007 — it was possible to be a New York baseball fan. When your favorite team, the Mets, was on a west-coast swing and you had to go to sleep before the late games started, nobody questioned your choice to turn on the Yankee home game and root for the other local nine.

Now? Supporting the Mets essentially requires you to hate anyone employed by the Steinbrenners. Such negativity has made us less just, has diminished us as Mets fans and as citizens of the Empire State. You know the T-shirt, “I root for the Mets and whoever’s playing the Yankees?” That’s Jeter’s fault. — Scott D. Simon (@scottdsimon)

The Wilpons

Sometimes you’ll read a magazine profile of someone and come away thinking, Why did they ever agree to that? The pinnacle of the art form — at least in baseball circles — might well be Jeffrey Toobin’s 2011 New Yorker profile of Fred Wilpon, whose ownership tenure on the field has been a morass of underachievement sprinkled with little blips of excitement. Off the field, there has been a near-endless string of embarrassments, from the Bernie Madoff debacle (which makes up the narrative bulk of Toobin’s piece and makes Wilpon look clueless, if not downright incompetent) to the discrimination lawsuit involving Jeff Wilpon that was settled last year to the inexplicable reluctance to re-sign Yoenis Cespedes this past offseason after a second-half explosion that led to a shocking World Series run. Bud Selig and MLB have enabled and protected Wilpon and his partners time and again over the years. That policy continues with no end in sight.

The best any pro sports team owner can hope for is to be a neutral party that stays in the background, signs the checks, and doesn’t inflict any due harm on the franchise. Make no mistake: Fred and the Wilpons are not the direct reason for any of the Mets’ recent celebrations. The Mets have succeeded in spite of the Wilpons and their repulsive decision-making. The subhead on that New Yorker profile: “Will Fred Wilpon be forced to sell the Mets?” Oh, we’re still waiting on that one. — Erik Malinowski (@erikmal)

Roger Clemens

Although the 1986 Mets had to face Roger Clemens, that year’s MVP and Cy Young winner, in the World Series, it was not until 14 years later that Roger would fully establish his villainy toward the franchise. Mike Piazza spent his MLB career owning Roger Clemens (.364/.440/.955). Clemens, a pitcher who put together an undeniably great career, was never afraid to throw at opponents who dared to succeed against him. He famously threw a purpose pitch up and in at his oldest son Koby, after Koby hit a home run against him in a 2006 Spring Training game. Six years earlier (7/8/00) Roger Clemens hit Mike Piazza in the head with a fastball. This pitch alone would have been enough to add The Rocket to the list of Mets villains, but he was never one to settle for just qualifying for a list. In game 2 of the World Series that same year, Clemens took his villainy to cartoonish heights when he broke Piazza’s bat on a foul ball, picked up a shard of bat that went into the field of play, and threw it at Piazza, who was running down the first base line. The benches cleared and Clemens had forever earned his place on the list of the greatest villains in Mets history. — Craig Glaser (@sabometrics)

Terry Pendleton

Terry Pendleton had a nice career. He won a few gold gloves and an MVP. He compiled ~33 WARP across 15 seasons in the bigs. That is a very good major league ballplayer. In my head, I thought he was a bit better hitter than his .270/.316/.390 final line. Even playing the bulk of his games in the late­ eighties and early nineties, that only comes out to a .252 TAv. He must have been better against the Mets, no? That’s why I must consider him a Mets villain (and it would also explain my misrememberings). Nope, his performance against the Mets was right around his career line. Sure, he played for the mid-eighties Cardinals teams that clashed with Keith, Doc, Darryl and company, but was he more of a pest than Jack Clark or Willie McGee?

I started rooting for the Mets in 1987. In my twenties, I wore this as a twisted badge of honor. I’ve seen things, man, and none of them were a Mets World Series victory. Functionally, of course, I remember very little of the 1987 season. I was five. My Mets fandom comes from my maternal grandparents’ side. They lived in Florida at the time, and when they’d call we’d talk about the Mets box score from the previous night’s game. This is also how I learned how to read, box scores and gamers from the Hartford Courant. A lot of this comes to me second-hand from my parents of course, abiding memories are hard to come by when you’re five.

I do have one memory of that season though. I hate Terry Pendleton. The culprit was likely this game. The Mets had a chance to reel the Cardinals in late in the season. It was a brutal loss looking at the box score. I may have seen the game. I likely read the AP report the next day in the Courant. I don’t remember either of those things, though. I just remember I hate Terry Pendleton. This is silly, of course. I am an adult, I should put away childish things. And I don’t really hate Terry Pendleton nowadays.

But I sort of still hate Terry Pendleton nowadays. — Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro)

Shane Victorino

From 2007 until his inglorious exit from Philadelphia in 2012, no one captured the enmity of Mets fans more than Phila talented switch-hitting centerfielder. Victorino was not, like many of the other players listed here, a traditional “Met Killer.” He put up something very close to his career line in games against the Mets. Victorino doesn’t even have the signature backbreaking moment, just a couple of garden-variety walkoffs like every other longtime division foe. What Victorino was to the Met fan was a constant agitator. He slid a little too hard (and years later, praised another member of this list who slid far too hard). He said a little too much to the media. He did a little too much celebrating on the field, famously mocking Jose Reyes home run celebrations in the 2008 playoffs that the Mets weren’t even in. He’d bend the rules, and then whine to the umpires. He was the perfect player for a rival fan to love to hate.

But baseball fandom also has a funny way of lying to you about these things. When I went back to look at what I remembered as a brutal flying forearm to Reyes in a rundown in 2009, it was more of a borderline brush to create an obstruction call. And years after their various run-ins, Reyes is currently under indefinite suspension for allegedly slamming his wife through a glass door, while Victorino tries to fight his way back to the major leagues. Looking back, I’m not sure I had the right villain in this story. — Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler)

Yadier Molina

Baseball fans may think of Yadier Molina as a two-way catcher and seven-time all star. But back in 2006, Molina hit .216/.274/.321. To put that in historical perspective, Kevin Plawecki struggled his way to a .241 True Average last year. Molina’s TAv in the 2006 regular season was .201! In the playoffs, Molina must have suddenly discovered how to hit during one of his countless trips to the pitcher’s mound.

With one out in the 9th inning of Game 7 of the NLCS, Molina hit a home run to left that would prove to be the game winner. The 83-win Cardinals then went on to become the worst team to ever win the World Series. Yadier Molina has embraced his role as the leader of a team that relies more on execution, luck and aggravating opponents than power at the plate or on the mound. Instead of being a cult hero like his brothers, Yadier has been dubbed “the evil Molina brother” by many fan bases, starting with the that of the Mets. — Noah Grand (@noahgrand)

Pat Burrell

On the list of Met-killers, perhaps Burrell doesn’t have the same cache as the Chase Utleys and Chipper Joneses of the world. But if you look at the top-10 home run hitters against the Mets, you’ll find a laundry list of Hall-of-Famers starting with Willie Stargell (60 anti-Met dingers) and ending with Andre Dawson (36 homers against the Amazins). The only two people in the top 10 neither enshrined in nor heading to Cooperstown are No. 6 Ryan Howard and No. 7 Pat Burrell.

Burrell was a first overall draft pick in 1998, chosen 20 picks ahead of the Mets’ immortal choice of Jason Tyner by the Philadelphia Phillies. For the better part of a decade, he seemed to be around during every Phillies rally, and even after he moved to San Francisco at the end of his career, he still found a way to bring the Mets down. It is forgivable to be a high draft pick, but to be a foundational piece of a Phillies team that won the 2008 World Series? To hit 42 home runs against the Mets, seemingly each and every time I tuned in to watch a New York-Philadelphia tilt? Unforgivable. — Bryan Grosnick (@bgrosnick)

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports