After a nice ceremony honoring the 1986 Mets, the game got off to a good start when Noah Syndergaard looked to be dealing. He struck out Chase Utley to start the game and, despite giving up two hits in the first, Syndergaard got out of it and seemed to be on his way to another dominant outing, consistently hitting 100 MPH on the radar gun.
In the bottom of the inning, it looked like the Dodgers would be the ones to go to their bullpen early when Michael Conforto hit a comebacker off starter Kenta Maeda's hand. Maeda was able to stay in the game and instead it was the Mets who had to turn to their bullpen in the third.
In Utley's second at-bat of the game, Syndergaard threw a ball behind Utley. Home plate umpire Adam Hamari immediately ejected Syndergaard, which elicited an outburst from Terry Collins. This reaction got him tossed from the game as well and Logan Verrett was pressed into service to take over for Syndergaard.
Verrett filled in admirably, at first getting back-to-back strikeouts of Utley and Corey Seager to end the inning. The game remained scoreless until—who else—Chase Utley hit a home run off of Verrett in the sixth. He gave up another run on a Yasiel Puig single, but overall Verrett acquitted himself nicely.
The same could not be said for the rest of the bullpen. One night after Jeurys Familia struggled, his relief mates picked up where he left off. Antonio Bastardo entered in the seventh and loaded the bases and departed without getting anyone out. Hansel Robles entered and struck out Kike Hernandez but gave up a grand slam to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. To pile on in the eighth, Adrian Gonzalez and Howie Kendrick hit solo shots of their own against Robles. The home run barrage continued when Jim Henderson gave up one to Corey Seager in the ninth.
The lone bright spot of the day for the Mets was Juan Lagares, who hit his second home run in as many days in the eighth.
So is the Chase Utley retaliation saga over? It remains to be seen, but it could have been over had not one umpire acted rashly, and so the drama continues.
SB Nation GameThreads
* Amazin' Avenue GameThread
* True Blue LA GameThread
Box scores
Win Probability Added
Source: FanGraphs
Big winners: Noah Syndergaard +11.6%
Big losers: Logan Verrett -13.5%, Asdrubal Cabrera -10.3%
Teh aw3s0mest play: Curtis Granderson single in 1st
Teh sux0rest play: Chase Utley home run in 6th
Total pitcher WPA: -16.7%
Total batter WPA: -33.3%
GWRBI!: Corey Seager