A look at the controversial play at second base last night and other playoff notes

It was a crazy play at second base in the seventh inning last night. When the Dodgers' Chase Utley attempted to break up a double play, it led to an injury, a controversy, a critical out lost for the Mets and a confusing replay ruling.

Utley barreled into Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada with runners on first and third and one out, with the Mets leading 2-1 in the seventh. Some thought it was clearly a late and dirty slide as Tejada fell hard to the turf and suffered a cracked fibula. There will be tackles in NFL games today that result in less violent collisions.

After an out call was originally made, a replay review later ruled Utley safe even though Utley never touched second base and Tejada never did either in an attempt to get the force out. After that play resulted in a 2-2 tie, Los Angeles scored three more runs and won 5-2 to even the National League Division Series at 1-1 with the Mets.

Earlier in that game, the buzz was about the Mets' Noah Syndergaard and his blazing heater and the fact that Los Angeles right-hander Zack Greinke gave up two homers in one inning. You can learn a few things on Twitter and here is info tweeted from various sources in the early innings last night:

* Here are Syndergaard's first nine fastballs, in mph: 99, 100, 99, 99, 101, 101, 101, 101, 100. His changeup was 91.

* Syndergaard back out for the third inning. He has thrown 36 pitches, 13 of them triple-digit fastballs.

* Dodgers had worst batting avg (.156) and 2nd-worst slug pct (.219) vs. pitches 97+ mph this season.

* First time Zack Greinke has allowed 2 HR in a game at home since Aug. 23, 2014 vs ... the Mets.

* $53M: Cost to Dodgers this season for Kershaw & Greinke
$967K: Cost to Mets this season for deGrom & Syndergaard

That was only the third game all season in which Greinke has allowed two homers and the first time he's given up a pair in the first inning.

American League playoff batting leaders:
.500 - Ben Zobrist, Kansas City (4-for-8)
.455 - Delino Deshields, Texas (5-for-11)
.444 - Colby Rasmus, Houston (4-for-9)
.375 - Kendrys Morales, Kansas City (3-for-8)
.364 - George Springer, Houston (4-for-11)

Rasmus leads all AL players with three homers and five RBIs. And yes, he was a free agent the Orioles looked at over the winter, but he wound up with Houston.

Texas has posted 5-3 and 6-4 wins over Toronto. The highest-scoring team in MLB, Toronto batters are hitting just .171 (14-for-82) in that series. Toronto's Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki are batting a combined .143 (5-for-35) so far in the series.

Later today, the two American League Division Series resume. Houston hosts Kansas City with the teams tied 1-1, and Texas hosts Toronto as the Rangers lead the Blue Jays 2-0, with Toronto facing elimination.

Final word: I can't get in Utley's head, but I would guess his intent last night was to go in hard to break up a double play and not to injure Tejada. But in doing so, he did injure Tejada. His slide was clearly late and he was more upright then most runners are when sliding into a base. Some feel that, and they may well be right, we will see a rule change as a result of that play. One similar to the home-plate collision rule designed to protect catchers from injury. The so-called "Buster Posey" rule.