Sometimes Burke Badenhop will beat you

I had a crappy day yesterday. It was certainly nothing tragic and nothing, in truth, that will even negatively impact today. I just suffered a steady stream of minor annoyances, starting with getting caught in a cloudburst at 9:15 a.m., ending with missing my train at 9:54 p.m. — first-world problems all, but in such a relentless onslaught that if the events of my day were condensed into the opening montage of a movie, you’d probably say, “this movie sucks, no one has days like that.” It was like a coin coming up tails 12 times in a row or something.

As a byproduct of some of that I missed a good portion of the Mets game, including what I understand were some pretty frustrating bunts. I tuned back in right after one of them, so I did see — in thrilling high definition — the part where Justin Turner ripped a ball that somehow redirected off Hanley Ramirez to Omar Infante to perfectly set up a double play. I also caught the part where Ryota Igarashi went to a full count on to Marlins reliever Burke Badenhop then yielded a go-ahead base hit to Marlins reliever Burke Badenhop.

And then, of course, I watched pinch-hitter Jon Niese smack a triple over Emilio Bonifacio’s head in center field, only to have Jose Reyes strike out to end the game with the mighty Chin-Lung Hu looming on deck.

Apparently Hu came in to pinch-hit — which should never happen — in part of the game I missed earlier. He was sent to Triple-A while I was asleep later. Hu grounded into a fielder’s choice in his lone at-bat, sparing himself the indignity of going to Buffalo with strikeouts in more than half of his plate appearances.

But he’s gone now, as is Igarashi, the Mets’ Far East contingent banished to Western New York. They are replaced on the roster by Ruben Tejada and Pedro Beato, with Nick Evans likely to join the team whenever David Wright goes kicking and screaming to the disabled list.

So really the only thing we’re left with to complain about in last night’s game is the bunting, and that’s nothing new. That’s bunting. Managers love bunting.

You have enough days, you’re bound to have some bad ones. Sometimes Burke Badenhop’ll beat you. You can’t win ’em all, like they say.

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