After Chase Utley broke Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada’s leg with a controversial slide in Game 2 of the NLDS on Saturday night, a replay review showed that Tejada missed the bag while attempting to turn the double play, just before Utley came crashing into him. Utley never touched the base, either, but the Dodgers infielder was ruled safe at second and the club soon rallied to take a lead.

On Sunday, MLB announced that Utley will be suspended for the slide. Here’s the press release:

Here’s the problem with that: Though Torre notes how difficult it would be for the umpires to make the right call in that situation, he writes that Utley’s “slide was in violation of Official Baseball Rule 5.09(a)(13).”

You know what Official Baseball Rule 5.09 is titled? “Making an Out.” The first four words of section (a)? “A batter is out when…”

Section (a)(13) continues:

(A batter is out when) A preceding runner shall, in the umpire’s judgment, intentionally interfere with a fielder who is attempting to catch a thrown ball or to throw a ball in an attempt to complete any play.

There’s even an explanation following rule 5.09(a)(13) in the official MLB rulebook.

The objective of this rule is to penalize the offensive team for deliberate, unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner in leaving the baseline for the obvious purpose of crashing the pivot man on a double play, rather than trying to reach the base. Obviously this is an umpire’s judgment play.

So, Torre’s ruling that Utley violated Rule 5.09(a)(13) implies that Major League Baseball believes the umpires got the call wrong. And if that’s the case, the Mets should probably be doing whatever they can to protest the outcome of the game.

The explanation states that the rule aims “to penalize the offensive team for deliberate, unwarranted, unsportsmanlike action by the runner,” but the Dodgers are being penalized only with a two-game suspension for a part-time player. And since Utley, a pending free agent, will likely appeal the suspension, then the Dodgers aren’t really getting penalized at all.

Again: Both Utley and batter Howie Kendrick were ruled safe. Two batters later, after Corey Seager flied to left on what would have been the third out if either Utley or Kendrick were retired, Utley came around to score the go-ahead run in the Dodgers’ eventual 5-2 victory.

It seems extraordinarily unlikely the league would ever do anything to give the Mets a second chance at winning the game from that point on. It’d be practically impossible to pull off, logistically. But Torre’s statement is MLB admitting that its umpires got a call wrong, and that same call cost the Mets a playoff game.

Now the Mets are out a shortstop and, possibly, a win due to a slide that was determined to be illegal by Major League Baseball. They got jobbed, no matter how or when Utley is disciplined.