Chase Utley’s flip of Ruben Tejada on a controversial aggressive takeout slide apparently wasn’t enough entertainment for this post-season so in one inning in a Wednesday game we got a double dose:

• Texas scored a tie-breaking run in the seventh inning of Game 5 when the catcher’s return throw to the pitcher hit the batter’s bat and the runner at third base, Roughned Odor, raced home. Umpire Dale Scott initially called time and sent Odor back to third but realized his mistake, explaining after the game that he had confused two rules and called the wrong one.

• In Toronto’s half of the inning, with Cole Hamels pitching with a 3-2 lead, the first three Toronto batters reached base on errors on ground balls. The Rangers successfully fielded a fourth straight grounder and turned it into a force at home before Josh Donadson’s pop-up fell just over the infield to produce the tying run. Jose Bautista then slugged a three-run home run for an eventual 6-3 victory and a trip to the American League Championship Series.

Nothing controversial intruded on the final game of that division series, but as the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets prepared to play the deciding game of their division series, a hearing on Utley’s appeal of his suspension had not been held.

The way I see it, Joe Torre’s suspension of Utley wasn’t warranted in the first place. In fact, I think Torre warrants as much notoriety for the suspension as Utley got for his controversial slide that broke Tejada’s leg.

For a guy who has spent his entire adult life in baseball, Torre, I believe, missed the boat and got it wrong. He watched replays of Utley’s takeout of Tejada I don’t know how many times and he got it wrong. He got it wrong because he was focusing on the wrong part of the play.

I wasn’t watching with Torre so I could be wrong, but based on his two-game suspension of Utley, I suspect I’m right. Over and over he watched what Utley did when he should have watched what Tejada and Daniel Murphy did.

When he played, Torre was a third baseman and a catcher; he didn’t play second base or shortstop so maybe he wasn’t aware of the nuances of those positions.

Murphy was the New York’s Mets’ second baseman, Tejada the shortstop when Howie Kendrick hit a ground ball to Murphy, who threw to Tejada for what he thought would be the start of a double play. Utley, at first with a pinch-hit single, had another thought and bore down on Tejada.

Willie Randolph is familiar with the veteran Utley and even more familiar with being the target at second base when runners were coming at him intent on breaking up double plays.

“That play had funny things happen,” said the former player, manager and coach, who started 2,108 games at second for the New York Yankees. “It was a bad throw. Once he made the bad throw, Tejada shouldn’t have tried to throw. He did a pirouette. To get him, Utley had to slide late.

“It was a funky play. You have to have a feel for the game. He shouldn’t have tried to get a double play. You have to have a feel for the play.”

Randolph knows whereof he speaks. He was the object of one of the most vicious takeouts in post-season history. Hal McRae, as aggressive a baserunner as baseball has ever seen, flew through the air and slammed Randolph to the ground in a game in the 1977 league championship series between the Yankees and Kansas City, making sure he stayed there long enough to allow the tying run to score.

“McRae launched his whole body at me,” Randolph recalled in a telephone interview Wednesday. “That was way overboard, but we expected these things and were prepared for it.”

“We played that way,” he added. “You get my guy, we’ll get your guy. As long as you didn’t come in with high spikes up and cut somebody.

“When I came up there were a lot of old-school guys. If they had retaliated and hit Utley in the neck I guarantee he would have dropped his bat and gone to first base. Utley knocked the heck out of himself. It happens too infrequently today. Kids aren’t ready for it.”

In the current generation of players, Randolph, 61, said, “The guys have no instinct for double plays. Once in a while you’ll find an old-school guy like Utley. But these guys are buddy buddy. They have the same agents.

When David Wright was a rookie, he did a great job taking guys out, but one time he stopped and asked the fielder if he was OK. I said, ‘David, nicer going, but why didn’t you kiss him?’ They’re hugging each other, high- fiving each other, shaking hands. We didn’t do that.

That’s why when it happens people go overboard.”

Times are different, too, on the way these things are handled. The Yankees, led by Manager Billy Martin, argued vehemently that the umpires should call, should not allow the run to score. The umpires did nothing. No one else did either.

In the new wimpy world of baseball, Torre, who oversees on-field operations, suspends Utley for two playoff games and Commissioner Rob Manfred says his office will look into “whether we need a little different rule than what we’ve been using.”

“We’ll take a look at the rule and talk about changes and enforcement, and that’s easier because you don’t have to bargain it,” he added. “But my own thinking is a nice, clear, simple rule would probably be an improvement for the game.”

Is he serious? Unfortunately, yes. A few years ago Major League Baseball invoked a rule governing home plate collisions because Buster Posey broke his leg in a collision. Now middle infielders. When do they put a screen in front of the pitcher’s mound to protect pitchers?

In my softball-playing days, I recall that a third baseman suffered a cut on his leg when a runner wearing spikes slid into his leg. The league outlawed metal spikes. The league obviously was ahead of MLB.