The Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets are going at it in a huge series that will go a long way toward determining the hierarchy at the top of the NL East, and it didn’t take long for the two rivals to have a heated moment on Tuesday night. Phillies starter Jesus Luzardo had an outburst at the home-plate umpire during the first inning.

Luzardo got upset when Mets star Juan Soto called for time while Luzardo appears to have already started his windup, and the timeout was granted. He immediately went after the home-plate ump to speak his mind.

Nothing else came of the incident, and Luzardo continued on like nothing happened. After the game, he explained what made him so upset about the situation.

Jesús Luzardo to @AntSanPhilly: “I’m not really an emotional guy. Pretty calm out there for the most part, just when I think something’s not fair, I’ll make sure to stick up for it.” pic.twitter.com/LPSav4ZWVT

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“I’m not really an emotional guy,” Luzardo said. “Pretty calm out there for the most part, just when I think something’s not fair, I’ll make sure to stick up for it. And I think that what happened there, I didn’t think it was right at least in my eyes. Like I said, I said my peace and we moved on so it is what it is.”

Luzardo wasn’t done wearing his emotions on his sleeve in this one. After loading the bases with a no-out walk in the fifth inning and being pulled from the game, he got into another spat with the home-plate umpire that got him ejected from the game. He finished the night with four earned runs on five hits in four innings pitched and got a no decision.

While the Phillies had their chances to win this game late, it was the Mets who came out on top 6-5 in dramatic fashion after Brandon Nimmo’s walk-off base hit in the ninth.

Philadelphia still has a big five-game cushion at the top of the NL East even after this loss due to the Mets’ recent struggles, and they still have a chance to widen the gap on Wednesday night at Citi Field. The Mets, however, will be gunning for the sweep after getting a 13-3 win on Monday night, and a result like that is the kind of thing that could turn their season around.

Regardless, these two rivals always go at it and there is usually some bad blood between the two, especially after their tightly-contested playoff series in the NLDS last fall. With Wednesday night looming and another four-game set between the two scheduled for the middle of September, the 2025 story of this rivalry is far from over.