Ruben Tejada has been relegated to backup duty at this stage of his career. He doesn’t play too much, and doesn’t get too many pinch hit opportunities, either.
He’s just 3-for-18 in 21 plate appearances over the first 21 games, and while he’s considered a defensive improvement to Wilmer Flores, he has not performed particularly well on defense so far this season.
It would behoove Tejada to take advantage of the rare opportunities he is given. Unfortunately on Tuesday, he did not, especially in the eighth inning.
With Daniel Murphy on second base and nobody out, Tejada came to bat with the lefty Kirk Nieuwenhuis on-deck. Tejada then squared to bunt and made contact, but hit it too hard and right back to the mound, making for an easy throw for Marlins pitcher Bryan Morris to nab Murphy at third.
After the game, Terry Collins said the bench did not call for the bunt in that situation. Instead, Tejada chose to try and lay down a bunt, and just did not execute.
Considering it was Tejada’s call, it makes it more imperative he get the bunt up the third base line to get Murphy over to third. Instead, his poor bunt pretty much ended the rally, and the Mets chances for the night.
An argument could be made Murphy made a poor decision by running on contact and not stopping once he saw the location of the ball. That’s fair, but the idea is to get him across on a sacrifice attempt, and he was just trying to do his part. If he had picked that ball up, stopped and gone back, the Mets would merely have been lucky…
It comes down to Tejada’s inability to execute – if he does, this isn’t really a discussion point today.
Just Mets 