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Did Chase Utley's Slide Change the National League Division Series?

Chase Utley's hard slide that broke Ruben Tejada's right leg has people calling the Dodgers' second baseman dirty, will he be suspended?

 Yes, it was late. Yes, it was hard. Yes, it was reckless. But was it illegal?

That's the question that Major League Baseball's Chief Officer, Joe Torre, will have to answer over the next 24 hours.

"I sure hope as hell that Chase Utley wasn't trying to hurt somebody," Torre said in a postgame press conference. "He's been a great player for a long time, and he's played hard. I think it was a little late. I'm looking at it just to see if there's anything we feel should be done."

With one out in the seventh inning, Utley ran head first into the legs of Ruben Tejada at second base in order to break up a double play. Instead, he broke Tejada's leg.

"When I got out there and grabbed it, he said there was no feeling in his foot," Mets' manager Terry Collins said of the moment he reached Tejada. "Ray stood him up, and he said 'I can't move my foot.' Ray said, 'I think he broke his ankle.' So we said we need the cart and that was it."

Tejada was immediately rushed to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a fractured right fibula, an injury that will have him miss the remainder of the postseason.

"They're angry," Collins said of his players after the game. "You lose in a playoff series to that serious of an injury, yeah they're not very happy about it."

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The Mets are now mad, their fans are furious, thus setting the stage for one hell of a Game 3 at Citi Field in New York on Monday.

"I don't know," Utley, replied when asked if he thought the Mets would retaliate against him in Game 3. "I had no intent to hurt anyone whatsoever."

While there is plenty of doubt in the eyes of fans, spectators, and players, both past and present, to whether or not the slide was "dirty," there is no doubt whatsoever that the played changed the game, and arguably the season for the Dodgers.

The Dodgers ended up scoring the tying run on the play, and after a replay overturned the call and awarded Utley second base without having ever touched the bag (a rule we're still not clear on), he scored the go-ahead run, as Los Angeles would take advantage of the Mets emotional state, and tie the best-of-five series at one game apiece.

In the next few hours, we will find out if the league will punish Utley for the slide. One thing for certain is that the Mets will be without a starting shortstop for the remainder of the series, and the Dodgers believe they have seized momentum heading into the Big Apple.

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