Utley homers twice but Phillies fall to Mets

NEW YORK - The second game of the Phillies' first 2015 series against the Mets was billed as Matt Harvey's return to the Citi Field mound after a season-long absence. It featured plenty of the hard-throwing righthander, yet also much more.

The Phillies, anemic offensively for much of the season's first week, slugged four home runs, two coming from a previously slumping Chase Utley. Three batters were hit. Mets manager Terry Collins was ejected. David Wright exited with a hamstring pull. And an energy-filled Tuesday night in Flushing ended after 3 hours, 12 minutes in a 6-5 Mets win.

"A lot of different things going on in that game," Phillies third baseman Cody Asche said. "It was intense. That's what we come to expect with these games in our division and teams that we play so much. There's going to be games like that. Tensions are going to rise every now and then."

In the end, the lone crooked number on the scoreboard, the Mets' three-run second inning, proved the biggest difference. The Phillies (3-5) managed three runs and five hits, including two of their home runs, off Harvey, the Mets star making his second start since undergoing Tommy John surgery in October 2013, but it was not enough. The Mets (5-3) tagged Phillies pitching for 12 hits.

Utley broke out with by far his best game of the young season. The first seven games yielded two hits in 24 at-bats, the worst start to a season of his decorated career. The eighth netted him three more hits and three more RBIs.

Utley's first-inning home run snapped a career-worst 175 at-bat homerless drought and Harvey's streak of 61 innings without allowing a long ball. His eighth-inning homer gave him his first multi-home run game since June 2013. His six career hits against Harvey are two more than any other active player.

"It's not how you envision coming out of spring training," Utley said of his slump, "but you can't really dwell on the past, especially in this game."

The Phillies' veteran second baseman was also involved in some drama. Three innings after Phillies starter David Buchanan hit New York's Wilmer Flores and Michael Cuddyer on the hands - the fastball that hit Cuddyer forced him from the game - Harvey plunked Utley in the back with a 95-m.p.h. fastball.

"Getting hit by a pitch is part of the game," Utley said. "It's not the first time I've been hit, and it's probably not the last."

A batter later, Ryan Howard reached to load the bases on what home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez called catcher's interference, although replays showed otherwise. Collins, the Mets skipper, argued and was ejected before Carlos Ruiz popped out to end the threat.

The Phillies entered the game with two home runs in 232 at-bats. With Utley's pair of homers, an upper-deck shot from Asche and a ninth-inning blast from Jeff Francoeur, they hit four on Tuesday. The pair against Harvey marked the second time in 38 career starts that the New York ace gave up more than one home run in a start.

But there once again was not enough production throughout the lineup. Odubel Herrera, Freddy Galvis, Howard and Ruiz combined to go 0 for 16.

Buchanan's rough start to the season continued, too, as he fell to 0-2. In 52/3 innings, the second-year righthander allowed five runs on nine hits, the biggest of which was Lucas Duda's three-run triple in the second inning.

"Regardless of who I'm pitching against, you don't want anybody to score. You want to keep your team in the game," Buchanan said. "I tried to do my best with that tonight. It didn't really pan out. I've got to get better. That's pretty much all there is to it: I've got to get better."