The Mets-Phillies rivalry is officially back

High heat, tempers flaring, an occasional ejection or two. Is this the new norm in the rejuvenated Mets-Phillies rivalry?

“It’s a rivalry, especially with the way these lineups are now, and it’s always going to be chippy between the Mets and the Phillies, especially when both are competitive,” Michael Conforto said before the teams played their series finale Wednesday at Citi Field. “I don’t think there’s any problem with that as long as we just play clean, competitive baseball and aren’t beating up on each other.”

A night earlier, tensions escalated as Jacob Rhame threw a pitch over Rhys Hoskins’ head in the ninth inning, with the Mets ahead by nine runs. Rhame’s next pitch came high and tight to Hoskins.

The Phillies drilled Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso in the first two games of the series, continuing a trend of Mets batters getting plunked. Entering play Wednesday, the Mets had been hit by 15 pitches, most in the National League.

“If you feel people are throwing at you intentionally, you probably feel the need to protect your players,” manager Mickey Callaway said. “At this point we just go out and beat people and win and continue to execute pitches when we’re pitching, and if they want to hit us and put a runner on, we’ll hit a homer after and hit a grand slam. For now, I don’t feel anything has been intentional at us that has warranted anything from our side.”

The Phillies didn’t seem to buy the notion that Rhame’s pitches were mistakes.

“I’ll just speak for me and say I’m still fairly upset about how [Tuesday] night’s game ended,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said.

Wilson Ramos was drilled by Phillies reliever Hector Neris in the ninth inning last Wednesday in Philadelphia, with first base open. Ramos said he understood the situation and it’s “part of the game,” but he’s hardly a proponent of such tactics.

“I play good baseball, I play clean baseball, I don’t like that,” Ramos said. “I like to go out there and compete and have fun. I don’t like those kind of situations, but that happens in baseball, so we have to go out there and keep playing baseball and keep having fun.”

The fact the Mets and Phillies have 13 games remaining suggests that Wednesday night might not have been the end of any hostilities.

“It’s going to be like that all season, because they know we have a good team,” Ramos said. “We know they have a good team. Both teams want to win and be in first place so it will be like that. It will be hard games and hard situations, too.”

And if the Phillies throw at the Mets?

“They will have each other’s backs,” Callaway said. “They are a team. That is a team full of brothers in there that is going to do everything they can to protect each other, so we’ll deal with whatever we have to deal with appropriately.”