The Utley-ctric Slide

To recap what happened Saturday night, here's a GIF of what happened:

Chase Ultey was on first base. A ball was hit up the middle, 2nd baseman Daniel Murphy of the Mets fielded the ball, and flipped it to Short Stop Ruben Tejada, as you can see in the GIF Image. This has be a hot, or can I say, "Utley-ctrifying" topic recently among many baseball analysts and fans of the game. There have been defenses of how the slide was wrong and also how it's apart of the game.

After the slide occurred, SS Ruben Tejada left the game with an apparent leg injury. Later, it was reported he fractured his fibula, and would be out for the rest of the postseason. 

Major League Baseball went ahead an took action. It was announced yesterday Chase Utley would be suspended the next 2 games of the postseason because of his slide. The slide was ruled as an "illegal slide" to MLB. 

My Problem With the Situation

• If it was ruled an illegal slide by MLB, why was Utley not called out for an illegal slide? 
• Rules on sliding- Enforced better 

Double plays between the middle infielders happens multiple times a game. A very common play. Breaking up the double play by the base-runners is a part of the game. However, it is being stretched out too far. Middle infielders get out of the way to avoid the slide coming for them. Base-runners follow the middle infielders wherever the end up just to break up the double play. Saturday's incident was an example of that. Tejada was attempting to move out of the way. Utley, not aiming his slide towards the bag, collided into the young SS, who was moving out of the way from the base to make the double play, trying to avoid the slide. 

If there was anything that needed to be reviewed, it was the ruling. Chase Utley should not have been allowed to go back to 2nd base. According to Joe Torre, 

"Rule 5.09 (a) (13) is the rule which is designed to protect fielders from precisely this type of rolling block that occurs away from the base." 

The reason he was allowed to come back to second was not because of the illegal slide, but because the Dodgers wanted a review to see if Tejada touched the bag, in which he did not. The inning kept going, in which the Dodgers scored 3 runs after that play, breaking the tie and wound up winning. 

My solution would be to do a better job enforcing the rules on slides into a base. There have been many slides into 2nd base that were similar to Utley's slide, and there was no big deal made out of it. I believe Major League Baseball will either create a modification to the rule, or do a better job in enforcing the rule Torre stated. Something will happen.