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Justin Bour missed home plate on a slide because the forces of nature are cruel

One of the bigger picture takeaways of the recent statistical developments in baseball is the large role luck plays in determining the outcome of a play or game. Some line drives go into the gap for a double while others hit just as hard go straight into the second baseman's glove.
During the sixth inning of Sunday afternoon's 4-2 win against the Mets, Marlins first baseman Justin Bour became intimately acquainted with the vagaries of luck within baseball on a slide into home plate.

Bour certainly beats the throw to the plate and would be safe except for the fact that he didn't touch home plate. The left lead leg? Bounced up off the ground and right over the plate. The left arm sweeping through? The right knee has that covered. What, the knee stopped its forward momentum an inch in front of the plate? No matter, there's a foot on the plate in the vicinity of where Bour's right foot should be -- except, nope. That foot belongs to Mets catcher Travis d'Arnaud. Bour's resides just behind it, off the base.
That's at least four close calls where Bour almost got to home plate ahead of the tag, but fate or physics or luck -- whatever you want to call it -- intervened to prevent the first baseman from scoring the run. Luck has a way of evening out, and it surely has a lot of making up to do to Bour.

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