Ken Davidoff's baseball insider

Before you even ask...no, that's not Baumbach running under the Triborough Bridge.

Over some 50 hours, we got four ballgames in two ballparks. So let's get right to work. It's a Subway Series II review.

1. I almost feel guilty ripping into Johan Santana, because it offends the statistical analyst in me. But after Santana took the loss Saturday, and even more important, after he declined to take even a sliver of accountability in his frustrating month, I decided it was time to go after Santana, if just a little.

He's been very good with the Mets so far, and as you know, I throw out that 7-7 record; it could be much better. But Santana is not as elite as he once was. We've been discussing that here - baileywalk, you pointed it out the earliest, I think - and if you read the linked column, you'll see that a veteran scout agrees.

What's even more disturbing is that, so far, Santana has not emitted the "Climb on my back, and I'll carry you to victory" aura that you want to see from an ace. You pretty much saw that from Oliver Perez yesterday.

Santana's post-game comments serve as Exhibit A. I'd love to hear him say, "I'm the highest-paid pitcher in baseball. If my teammates give me a 1-0 lead, my job is to protect it." Like the way Andy Pettitte beats himself up whenever he loses. But that hasn't happened, not at all. Instead, it's, "I'm not perfect."

Maybe this will all solve itself. Maybe Santana will turn in a trademark second half, and the Mets will finally start hitting. But the eyebrows that Santana has raised so far reflect the danger in investing nine figures ($137.5 million, in this intance) in a player you don't know. Because now he has created some tension, albeit minor, by pointing fingers (he did at David Wright in his previous start, as mentioned in the "Weekend Predictions" post beheath this), and that's not something you would've anticipated from him.

2. Meanwhile, the Mets went 9-6 in interleague play. The Phillies went 4-11, and the Marlins went 5-10. That's pretty significant. Where would be the Mets be now without their relative success in interleague play?

And now we get a big, big week for the Mets, their biggest test yet _ four games at NL wild-card leader St. Louis, and then four games at the division-leading Phillies. Knowing them, they'll probably go 4-4.

3. Sometimes you wonder whether Jerry Manuel drinks truth serum during every meal. His pre-game comments yesterday captured everyone's attention. I agree with my colleague Wally Matthews: Manuel was merely being honest, when he said the Mets were the second team in town. I really hope no one in the yakkosphere, not to mention no one in the Mets' front office, takes Manuel to task for his frank remarks.

4. Even though the Yankees lost yesterday, I was impressed with the way Joe Girardi ran the game, in particular his righty-heavy lineup against Oliver Perez and his throwing David Robertson in a high-leverage situation in Robertson's major-league debut. Neither worked, but they were good ideas.

Girardi possesses a luxury that Joe Torre lacked in his final years; this is not a "playoffs or bust" season. Girardi is capitalizing on that by experimenting with different lineups and bullpen maneuvers. He's utilizing his entire roster, which is something that Torre consistently failed to do.

5. But speaking of Torre, he's so brilliant that he managed his team to a victory without getting a hit Saturday night! I know, this isn't technically a Subway Series matter, but the Dodgers' victory while getting no-hit raised a pet peeve for me.

According to Major League Baseball's rules, this will not be recorded as a no-hitter, because the Angels pitched only eight innings. I say, why not? Who says you have to win a no-hitter? A no-hitter is a game in which a team doesn't surrender any hits. End of conversation.

I'd love to see MLB open up the record books for both losing, eight-inning no-hitters and rain-shortened no-hitters. You can notate them as such. But they should be in there.

6. Jorge Posada's throwing arm isn't near full-strength, so it looks like third catcher Chad Moeller is going to hang around for a while. Meanwhile, Posada started at first base yesterday. I'm very curious to see what the Yankees do at first base next year. Go after Mark Teixeira? Re-sign Jason Giambi? Go after a lesser player, in anticipation of playing Posada more there? The Yankees have another half-season to process information for that decision.

7. For those in the media who cover only the Yankees, like Newsday's Kat O'Brien, yesterday marked their final trip to Shea unless the Mets make the playoffs (I think they will, as you know). I have to say, I'm jealous. From a reporter's perspective, it doesn't get much worse than Shea.

What do you Mets fans think? Do any of you have a soft spot for Shea? Me, if I were running things, I'd open Citi Field for the next homestand, no matter its state of readiness.

1. The Yankees will defeat the Mets, 6-4 at Yankee Stadium, in Game 1 of today's two-stadium doubleheader, only to see their clubhouse showers break afterwards. So they'll have no choice but to bus over to Shea Stadium while still sweaty in their home uniforms. Asked later what the bus smelled like, Joe Girardi will respond, "We stunk, is the bottom line. We stunk."

2. The Mets will win Game 2 at Shea Stadium, 6-1, behind a strong effort by Pedro Martinez. Yankees starter Sidney Ponson will further injure his already damaged reputation by dissing Kobe Bryant in a rap.

3. Johan Santana, embarrassed by giving up a grand slam to Felix Hernandez in his previous start, will dominate the Yankees en route to a 4-0 victory Saturday at Shea, allowing just three hits and striking out 13 in a complete-game shutout. But when it starts to rain after the game, Santana will blame David Wright.

4. In Sunday's Subway Series finale, the Mets will prevail, 8-3, giving them a 5-1 series victory over the Yankees. In a show of support for their interim manager, that they get his funky analogies, the Mets fans will create T-shirts combining the team logo with pictures of fertilizer.

5. I really think that we can't discuss the minor leagues enough nowadays, when veteran players are so cost-prohibitive and not necessarily better. So even though I wrote about the Mets' thin farm system in my Midweek Insider, when my boss (no, not that boss) asked me to write a column advancing this weekend's series, the topic that popped to my mind was the disparity in minor-league talent between the Yankees and Mets. The Mets have really hurt themselves by limiting their intake to players willing to sign for the slotted signing bonus.

As I wrote in this column, the Mets have a better chance than the Yankees to win the 2008 World Series, IMHO. But starting next year, and continuing into forever, for now, the Yankees will be better positioned. As I mentioned back in February, the Mets deserve credit for getting Johan Santana, yet it's also an indictment of their system that they felt they had to absolutely go outside their organization for pitching help.

6. Sam Borden, a columnist for the Journal News, is going to walk from Yankee Stadium to Shea Stadium in between games today, and he's treating the walk as an opportunity to fight cancer. Here is the relevant information, if you want to help.

Newsday's Ken Davidoff answers your Subway Series and other baseball questions in a special live chat today at 1 p.m.

There's a different feeling in a clubhouse after the final game of a series, at least from my outsider's perspective. Wins feel better, and losses feel worse.

Take last night's Mets game. The Mets performed terribly Monday and Tuesday, looking meek against baseball's worst team. But they avoided a sweep last night, and they'll get to enjoy today's off day knowing that, despite everything that has transpired in their miserable roller-coaster ride of a 2008, they're just three games behind the NL East leaders Philadelphia in the loss column.

The Mets are now 3-0 in series finales under Jerry Manuel, who, to his credit, is at least trying to shake things up. Why not alter the pre-game routine? Does that record reflect something positive about Manuel? Or is it just random?

I conducted some cursory research to see if the result of the series finale carried any sort of extra impact, a positive or negative carryover. Here's what I found:

The discussion that yesterday's item generated on the competence of Bud Selig, combined with a pair of uninspiring games from our local teams ("uninspiring" serving as a euphemism for "I had the night off and didn't watch them"), motivated me to look into the blog closet for this old idea. Tom Verducci wrote this a couple of years ago for Sports Illustrated's Web site, but the link isn't working. You can read it by clicking the first story here.

So let's do it. It's a participatory item: What would you do if you could replace Bud Selig for one day? Pretend that the Players Association doesn't exist (stop salivating, Richie G.), so that you can pass through whatever you want.

Here's my agenda:

1. Institute instant replay, now. Start with boundary calls on home runs. But make it clear that the intent is to eventually have instant replay decide controversial calls on everything besides balls and strikes. Explain to the fans that, while some of these determinations might lengthen the game, it'll be far more palatable to lengthen the game in a "productive" manner than to watch the wronged manager work his way to an ejection.

2. Announce that the designated hitter position will be terminated after the 2012 season. That allows Cleveland's Travis Hafner, the DH with the greatest job security, to play for the duration of his contract. I'm old school. I like the strategy involved when the pitcher hits. Plus, the absence of the DH should make up some of the time lost by the usage of replay.

3. Redesign the postseason to make life harder for the wild-card winner. This was Verducci's top priority . We discussed it yesterday here, and I first blogged about it last September. I'd go with the way the Pacific League used to do it - the wild-card winner must win four games to advance past the first round, while the division winner need win only three. I'm confident that the public would quickly catch onto the formula.

4. Spend more to find a reliable test for HGH. Baseball is high on its expert in this field, Gary Green, and I certainly don't have any evidence that Green isn't legitimate. But why put all your eggs in one basket? Why not throw some more resources to a different expert and see if the competition can speed up the development time? There's no harm in trying this, is there?

5. Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about George Mitchell. "Of course he's a profoundly conflicted creep. But look, those nimrods in Congress worship the guy so much, they think he doesn't even use the bathroom. Understand that, by hiring Mitchell to lead the investigation, Bud Selig got Congress off the industry's back, at least until the Democrats lose power back to the Republicans. Will it hurt Bud's legacy that he selected his pal, ensuring his own job security? Absolutely. But it also prevented, at least for the short term, more Congressional interference."

6. Reduce, and simplify, interleague play. Borrow from the NFL's model on interconference play, which promotes parity. We're going to make it just six interleague games _ one week, constituting two, three-game series. If you finished in first or second place in your division, then you're going to play the first- and second-place team in the assigned division for that year. If you finished third or fourth, then you're going to play the corresponding third- and fourth-place team.

For instance, in 2008, the Yankees, having finished second in the AL East in 2007, would have played the Cubs and Brewers, and the Mets, having finished second in the NL East last year, would've played the Angels and Mariners.

The league imbalance makes the formula tricky for the five fifth-place clubs and one sixth-place team (last place in the NL Central). Suffice it to say that those six losers will play a six-game schedule amongst themselves. Forget about rewarding bad teams (which often draw poorly) by sending the Yankees or Red Sox their way. Make those losers work their way to such revenues. You're also giving them a hand up by letting them play teams with an equally shaky recent past.

7. Make Pete Rose eligible for the Hall of Fame again. This was Fay Vincent's biggest mistake: Instead of letting the writers decide Rose's fate _ and I'm optimistic the majority would've done the right thing and kept him out of Cooperstown _ he came up with a new rule that people suspended from baseball shouldn't be eligible for the Hall. The rule targeted Rose. It should be eliminated.

Rose's 15 years of eligibility on the writers' ballot have passed, but urge the writers to make an exception and put him on their ballot for 2009 and only 2009. Give the BBWAA one chance to formally reject him, and after that put him on the Veterans Committee's ballot.

Of course, if he actually gets voted in, then we're all probably headed for, as Bill Murray put it in "Ghostbusters": "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

To clarify, since I see this already coming up in the responses: I'm not advocating Rose's inclusion in the Hall. I'd never vote for him, personally. I'm just saying he shouldn't be banned from the ballot. He should be considered, just as the steroid guys should.

All right, now it's your turn. Jim, sorry, you do not have the power to send Selig to Guantanamo Bay ;) But otherwise, anything goes.

Of our major team sports, Major League Baseball puts together the schedule with the least integrity. It's not even close. And that's because of interleague play.

The impetus for a "rivalry" series _ that there should be six games of Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox, etc. _ is financial. Those games are guaranteed sellouts. Tough beans if, say, the Mets have to play the Yankees six times while the Phillies get to avoid the Yankees altogether.

And, as commenter Andy pointed out yesterday, in recent years, the interleague schedule has become increasingly haphazard. The Yankees are targeted to play the NL Central this year _ so of course, they played the Padres last week. The Mets play the AL West, but they don't play Oakland. But they played Oakland last year, when they were lined up with the AL Central.

Yet despite these gross inadequacies, if Bud Selig woke up this morning, had a crisis of consience and said, "No more!" I would miss interleague play.

Because of games like last night at Shea. A Felix Hernandez grand slam off Johan Santana? Are you kidding me? That is great theater.

Then you have the Yankees' return to Pittsburgh tonight, which is being treated as sort of a big deal. As well it should be. Bill Mazeroski's 1960 World Series-winning homer is one of the game's all-time great moments. Of course the Pittsburgh fans are going to want to remember it.

Selig and his owners want more moments like this _ new memories like King Felix's slam, and the chance to re-live past agonies and ecstasies. Hank Steinbrenner can whine all he wants about the lack of a designated hitter in the National League. It'll get him nowhere.

I guess the lesson is, if you're going to operate without integrity, you should at least make sure your venture is worthwhile. In the case of interleague play, the end justifies the means. I know I shouldn't like it. But I do, anyway.

Took most of the weekend off, after last week's exhausting turn of events, and barely watched any game action. But now I"m tanned and rested, and ready to go back at it.

On "Fox Sports Extra" last night, host Duke Castilgione asked the New York Post's Mike Vaccaro and me, "Who has a better chance of making the playoffs, the Yankees or Mets?"

I said the Mets, because I always stay faithful to my preseason predictions. I think this past week displayed, vividly, what an upgrade the Mets received by replacing Willie Randolph with Jerry Manuel in the manager's office. And with Mike Pelfrey dealing, the Mets can throw out a pretty good starting pitcher, health permitting, every day. And now they won't play another game west of the Central time zone. After all the Mets have been through, isn't it amazing that they're just two games behind the Phillies and Marlins in the loss column?

The Yankees? I question their starting rotation and their strength of schedule (it's very hard) most of all. I also think the AL East is proving very difficult. You'll see that I selected Toronto as my AL wild card, and as I'm sure you can all appreciate, that was a typo. I intended to predict Tampa Bay in that slot. We all make spelling mistakes, right? You understand, I know.

In any case, it turns out that the Mets ARE more likely to make the playoffs than the Yankees, according to people who put far more thought into this than I do.

Check out this site. Each day, Baseball Prospectus analyst Clay Davenport simulates the rest of the season one million times - incorporating all of the updated data, and utilizing said data to project ahead.

Look at what today's forecast tells us: Of the one million simulated season conclusions, the Mets make the playoffs 22.7 percent of the time. The Yankees qualify 15.2 percent of the time.

It's a pretty neat tool, as you can see. How interesting that the A's are the "favorites" to win the AL West, despite trailing the Angels by 4 1/2 games. And that the Tigers, after their memorably horrendous starts, are up to a 12.2 percent chance of making the playoffs.

Thoughts? With which of these projections do you agree, and with which do you disagree? The great thing about this page is that you can check it every day, and the odds will fluctuate in conjunction with the team's success.

1. The Mets, in wrapping up one of the most eventful weeks in their history, will continue their recent upswing by taking two of three games from the Rockies at Coors Field. In their one loss Sunday, they will tally three runs to Colorado's 11, so that the 3:11 on the scoreboard honors the three men who lost their jobs in the Midnight Massacre.

2. The Yankees, loving their easy interleague schedule, will sweep their three-game series with the Reds at Yankee Stadium. After Mike Mussina gets nicked by a line drive tonight, however, Hank Steinbrenner, continuing his pursuit to keep pitchers out of harm's way, will demand that all hurlers be placed in a protective bubble.

3. Four days later, a confused Carl Pavano will still be wondering, "Why would anyone ever complain about being taken out of a game?"

4. I will appear Sunday night on "Sports Extra" with Duke Castiglione, 10:30 on Channel 5.

5. I ran into a baseball industry contact Wednesday at Angel Stadium, and the contact ridiculed me and my media brethren for overreacting to the Midnight Massacre.

"You're consumed by the 'how,' and ignoring the 'what,'" the person said.

"Well," I countered, "doesn't the 'how' reflect the poor leadership of Omar Minaya and the Wilpons?"

"What's the difference?" the person said. "The manager needed to be fired. They fired the manager. Who cares whether he had to fly back home, or what time happened? Omar exhibited leadership by sticking with Willie and giving him as long a chance as possible to turn it around."

I know some of you (mostly non-regular commenters) expressed such a sentiment on Tuesday, but most were outraged, as was I, by the tactics of the firing. Three days later...I'm not as outraged. But I still think it was the wrong way to go about it. Not historically bad. But bad.

Have any of you changed your thoughts, with some more time to absorb what the Mets did?

Just kidding with the headline, of course. It's a shout-out to this episode of "The Simpsons," when Homer tells an annoyed Marge of a similar affection for Mr. Burns' long-lost son, Larry (voiced by the late, great Rodney Dangerfield).

But I do love the Rally Monkey. Have any of you seen it at Angel Stadium? When the Angels are tied or losing in the late innings, they'll run clips from classic movies _ they used "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Austin Powers in Goldmember" last night _ interspersed with their "Rally Monkey," which jumps up and down and holds a "Rally Time!!!" sign. Here is more funny video of the Monkey.

I take my job very seriously, especially during weeks like this. Our goal is to get you the best news and analysis, so that you'll buy the newspaper and come back to our Web site. I don't root for teams because our White House reporter doesn't root for teams, and it's my intent to cover baseball with the same skeptical eye that we use to cover the U.S. government.

But every now and then, like last night, I'm reminded that I cover entertainment. It's a great deal of fun to sit back for a moment, take a breather and watch the Rally Monkey do his hilarious thing.

The Rally Monkey is my favorite in-game entertainment feature of any big-league ballpark. Anyone else have a favorite?

Sorry for the tardiness. It was a looooong day yesterday.

I landed at John Wayne Airport at about 12:30 local time yesterday, and got to Angel Stadium in time for Omar Minaya's and Jerry Manuel's news conferences. Here is the column I wrote.

I do think that having Manuel as the Mets' manager makes a rebound more likely, despite last night's ugly result. I liked the way that Manuel dealt with the Jose Reyes situation; when Reyes showed up Manuel when being lifted in the first inning, Manuel went to the clubhouse after the completion of the half-inning and confronted Reyes. Following the game, Reyes was apologetic.

And by the way, if we're going to rip Reyes for looking disinterested too often, we can't go nuts when he passionately argues being removed from the game.

Some more thoughts from the day:

As those of you who are kind enough to visit here often know, my brain tends to process news in terms of quotes and plotlines from TV, movies and songs.

So when I received a phone call from a TV producer at 4:48 this morning that the Mets had fired Willie Randolph (as well as Rick Peterson and Tom Nieto), the aforementioned brain rewound to 1988, and the scene from "Big" when Tom Hanks, shown the prospective toy by John Heard (as the evil executive), says, repeatedly, "I don't get it."

I don't get this, at all. If Omar Minaya was seriously evaluating Willie Randolph on a game-by-game basis, then what didn't he like about the last four games?

And if the last four games had nothing to do with it, then why wasn't Willie fired after last Thursday's heartbreaker?

Why in the world did the Mets fly out Randolph, Peterson and Nieto to California for one game, a game in which the Mets continued to correct many of their recent wrongs _ they came through with the "add-on runs" that Minaya desired, they continued to get strong starting pitching and they played strong defense _ only to fire the trio after the game?

We'll get more answers as the day progresses, but I'm not sure what can convince me that this wasn't a disgraceful process. One that was poorly thought out and, at the end, mean-spirited.

Oddly, I find myself feeling the same way as I did last October, when Joe Torre turned down the Yankees' lame, one-year extension and set himself free: I agreed with the result. I was horrified by the process. But in that case, the only people who were truly hurt were Torre himself. This time, Minaya held an entire team hostage while the devil and angel in his brain battled things out.

This spoke as much to the personalities involved as it did the team's performance and results. Willie had lost all support in the front office, besides Omar - not only with the Wilpons, but with Minaya's lieutenants. And that's somewhat on Willie. As we all know, our jobs require that we get along with the people both above us and below us on the food chain.

I don't see what Peterson did with the pitchers to merit a firing, not after Mike Pelfrey put together another good outing last night. No, Tony Bernazard has been trying to get Peterson _ a quirky, chatty guy who can be tough to take _ fired since Minaya and Bernazard arrived in 2005.

What is Nieto's sin? He's buddies with Randolph, who brought him over here.

OK, gotta get ready for my trip to Anaheim now. I'll check in after the news conference.

Back in November 2006, Barry Zito was the hot free-agent pitcher, and people wondered, naturally, how seriously the Yankees would pursue him.

I just didn't see it happening. Brian Cashman was fully in charge of the Yankees, and through painful experiences, he had grown weary of long-term commitments, particularly to pitchers.

Throw in that Zito's numbers had been on the decline for a few years, and that pitching for the Yankees would be more difficult in terms of competition, ballpark and external pressure, and it just didn't click for me.

But I did think that the Mets would go hard after Zito. They badly needed starting pitching _ they didn't know whether they would have Pedro Martinez for any of the 2007 season _ and they played in the inferior league and a pitcher's ballpark. They also employed Rick Peterson, under whom Zito enjoyed his best years in Oakland.

Cashman did little more than monitor the Zito negotiations; at one point, Zito's agent Scott Boras expressed his exasperation directly to the Yankees, something to the effect of, "Why aren't you more interested in him!?" Minaya, meanwhile, met with Zito out in California, along with Jeff Wilpon, Tony Bernazard and John Ricco, but they made it clear to him they wouldn't go beyond five years.

So both of our teams sat and watched as the Giants committed to what is looking like one of the worst contracts in the history of free agency.

In covering baseball, part of my job is to try and get inside the brains of general managers, particularly our local GMs, and try to anticipate their thought processes as they navigate the highs and lows of a baseball season. As with Zito, sometimes, you get it right, and sometimes not.

Right now, once again, we're trying to read the minds of Minaya and Cashman.

With Omar, it's, "What the $%*&# are you doing with Willie Randolph?!" The Mets players are exhausted by the "Will Willie stay or go?" plotline, and Omar appears to be in no hurry to resolve it. Yesterday's doubleheader split seems to have bough Willie this Anahaim series _ but who knows? A bad couple of losses could put the onus right back on the manager, with coaches Peterson and Tom Nieto in clear trouble, as well.

Keep in mind, this is Minaya's seventh season as a GM, and he has never fired a manager. Yes, he has to know that, once he fires Randolph, the attention turns to him and the mediocre job he has done in rebuilding the Mets organization. But he's already getting hammered plenty, both outside and inside the team. The bigger issue, to me, seems to be a simple sense on Minaya's part that Randolph can and should turn this team around.

Yes, the Wilpons are prepared to move onto Jerry Manuel. But it's not just them. Virtually everyone from this list who is involved in baseball operations, wants Randolph gone. Only Omar seems to think that Willie has a chance of survival. But that optimism lasts only one game at a time.

Cashman, as you know, has attempted to change the culture of the Yankees, since he gained full power in October 2005. During Cashman's first eight years, my job was really to think along with George Steinbrenner, which meant that every loss _ every close victory, too _ was a crisis, and that they would try to acquire every player in the game.

Cashman has made his intentions apparent: No one player, not even one season, is bigger than The Plan, which is to replicate Theo Epstein's "player development machine" up in Boston. Prior to yesterday, I thought there was no way that Cashman would trade for C.C. Sabathia, should the Indians fully commit to making him available.

But yesterday's game threw an interesting twist to the Yankees' season: Chien-Ming Wang suffered what looks to be a serious injury. The Yankees will be without their ace for an indeterminate period, possibly the duration of the season.

So now what does Cashman do? Does he honor his surging team by dipping into the stock of young talent he has compiled and trade someone _ Jose Tabata? Ian Kennedy? _ to bring Sabathia here for the rest of the season? I'd be shocked if Cashman even wanted to commit to Sabatha for a long-term deal, so this would be a half-season rental. Cashman also would get a couple of quality draft picks for next year once he let Sabathia go after the year.

My best bet is that Cashman will give this a couple of more weeks, see how Dan Giese or Daniel McCutchen does in Wang's place and makes a decision from there. The Indians can't be ready to trade Sabathia, anyway, not as they sit six games behind the AL Central-leading White Sox in the loss column.

But if Sabatha does get dealt, my bet, for now, is that another team _ the Cubs are the obvious favorite _ offers a more intriguing package than Cashman is willing to offer.

So we'll continue to watch our two local clubs, and try to guess Omar's and Cash's next moves.

Newsday's David Lennon and I are reporting that Willie Randolph has the weekend to turn around the Mets, and that hitting coach Howard Johnson and pitching coach Rick Peterson are in jeopardy of losing their jobs as well. We'll update the story as more details pour in tonight.

UPDATE: Dave Lennon and I are now reporting that Willie might not even make it through the weekend, regardless of how the Mets do against Texas, and that Rick Peterson will likely be gone, as well. I'll have a column on this in tomorrow's Newsday, and I'll refresh the news here, as warranted.

UPDATE #2: Dave Lennon and I are reporting this morning that, following Friday night's victory, it now appears Randolph will board the plane to Anaheim, regardless of today's doubleheader results. It appears that Friday's easy victory won Willie some more time. The whole thing is very bizarre, and it's definitely taking a toll on the Mets players.

Happy Father's Day, again, now that it's actually Father's Day. How about that storm last night? It took Dave and I, chauffered by The Daily News' Roger Rubin, two and a half hours to get from Shea to Manhattan after the game was called.

1. The reeling Mets will take two of three from the Rangers at Shea Stadium. They'll take a 20-0 lead on Sunday and hand the ball to Billy Wagner in the ninth, not realizing that the struggling closer would perform his tribute to Super Bowl XV before securing the victory.

2. The Yankees, in their seemingly never-ending quest to move past .500, will drop two of three to the Astros at Minute Maid Park. The only real drama will come when Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens see each other at the Galleria. The former friends will steal their strategy from this episode of "The Simpsons," with Clemens as Homer and Pettitte as Bart.

[Bart and Homer spot each other suddenly. They gasp]
Bart: I can't let Dad see me playing hooky!
Homer: I can't let the boy see me skipping work!
[Bart brushes his hair forward; Homer uses a comb as a
mustache]
Bart: [walking past] Good afternoon.
Homer: [walking past] How do you do, sir?
Together: [chuckle] Sucker...

3. Ramon Castro will have another pocket-schedule snafu (second item here) when he misses Saturday's game. "I went to Citi Field," Castro will explain. "I thought it opened today. I was wondering why there was so much construction equipment there."

4. A reader named Chuck, yet another distraught Mets fan, e-mailed me with an interesting thought. As we know, since the end of last year, the Mets have insisted that they've moved past The Collapse. When we all know they definitely haven't. Marlon Anderson conceded as much this week.

Here's what Chuck wrote: "Why not think about 2007? If I were Mets manager, there would be a blow-up picture of Jimmy Rollins with champagne in the locker room, and every team flight would have a replay of one of the 14 ridiculous September 2007 losses. It should be a motivator (like when Rocky would put Drago's picture on his mirror while training!)."

I agree entirely with Chuck. I love it when people lather themselves with their past mistakes and try to turn it into a positive. For example, my fellow University of Michigan product Chris Webber created the Timeout Foundation, which helps out youngsters, rather than run away from his infamous error.

What do you think? Should the Mets have approached the 2008 season with such a mindset? Would it have made a difference?

5. I will be on "Miked Up," Sunday night at 11:30 on Channel 4, with guest host Bruce Beck.

Thanks to the IMDb, and have a great weekend. Happy Father's Day to all, especially to Steve from South Amboy.

Rieber is going to make fun of me, but I got all worked up yesterday after listening to Benigno and Roberts during a drive.

They were discussing John Maine's outing from Tuesday night's Mets game, and how Willie Randolph lifted Maine after just five innings and 101 pitches. It was the usual "Why are baseball people so married to pitch-count?" stuff we hear all of the time.

I screamed at my radio, "Did they watch the game?!" And then I was amazed again (but didn't scream, because I would've awoken my wife) when the post-game analysts on SNY alluded it to it, after last night's Mets marathon.

Because if you watched Tuesday's game, you saw how Maine was laboring just to get through the five innings necessary to qualify for a victory. How he gave up a two-run homer to Orlando Hudson in the fifth, allowing the Diamondbacks to close within 5-3. How Maine looked absolutely cooked, in the stifling, 90-degree heat.

If anything, I thought Maine deserved to be ripped, for pitching so tentatively after the Mets gave him an early, 5-1 lead.

In the greater picture, I think pitch counts are very important. It's not like some pitching coach woke up one morning and said, "You know what? I think we should start following pitch counts more closely." An abundance of research has been performed on this matter. And if you're more of an "anecdotal evidence" type, just look at how Dusty Baker ran Mark Prior and Kerry Wood into the ground back in 2003, and think about what has happened to these two promising arms since then.

If Grady Little didn't dismiss the importance of pitch counts, then Terry Francona might be leading tours of the Liberty Bell right now, rather than working as one of the game's best managers.

Yes, managers should use some leeway when it comes to lifting a pitcher. But Tuesday night, Maine's pitch count reflected his performance. I'm not quite president of the Willie Randolph Fan Club, but that decision wasn't about blindly adhering to a principle. It was about realizing that Maine had nothing left to give.

I'm sitting here at Shea Stadium (I'll be home by the time I put this up, in a few hours), and to steal from Jack Buck, I can't believe what I just saw.

The Mets, in desperate need of a victory after getting swept in San Diego, jumped out to a four-run lead against Arizona at Shea Stadium, only to blow that lead and then some.

My job is to remain detached, as you know. But the Mets' performance offended me as a student of the game, as someone who's competed in a level as low as Little League and as a mammal. And, admittedly, as someone who saw the Mets, as the season's outset, as a championship-caliber team.

Here is my column, in which I sound the bugle (one of my favorite, old-school cliches) to re-start the Willie Randolph Watch.

After a game like tonight (last night, I should say), I feel like a change in the Mets' manager's office could only help. The Mets looked scared. Once they grabbed a 5-1 lead, they played like they wished they could keep the ball on the ground and hand it off to their reliable tailback to run out the clock. Yes, it was a hot night, but if John Maine wants to be a true stopper, he's got to figure out a way to make his 101 pitches last more than five innings. And the bullpen was absolutely brutal, from Claudio Vargas to Joe Smith to Duaner Sanchez.

But it's the front office's job to not get bogged down in any one game. To think globally. Of course, the Mets' front office isn't exactly on a roll at the moment. Not after the way the Ryan Church situation was botched.

So I yield the floor to you. Who says that Willie stays, and who says that Willie goes? Who wants to fire Rick Peterson (Poppy, raise your hand)? What about HoJo? What about Omar Minaya?

After a loss like that, you've more than earned the right to point a finger and scream, symbolically, at someone. We'll play the "There's plenty of season left" card some other day.

On my trip home from Yankee Stadium early Saturday evening, I finished reading "Living on the Black," John Feinstein's latest sports book. Feinstein convinced Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine to open up to him about their 2007 seasons, and the two veteran pitchers provided Feinstein with plenty of material with their performances alone, far from all positive.

I've been a fan of John Feinstein's since "A Season on the Brink" shook up the sports world, and I received "Play Ball," Feinstein's last baseball book, as a college graduation present from my good buddy Ken Sugiura. I've gotten to know John the last six years or so, and it was interesting watching him bounce from Flushing to the Bronx last season, and wondering what kind of book he would produce from two pitchers whose seasons both ended on sour notes.

The resutling product is worthwhile if you like the Mets, the Yankees or just the art of pitching. There are plenty of tidbits that I learned about the two men and their teams of 2007. Here are seven, in honor of this "Seinfeld" episode:

1. You probably won't be shocked to learn of Mussina's contempt for the always-injured Pavano, but you'll laugh nonetheless. When Mussina was negotiating a new contract with the Yankees in October 2006, Brian Cashman offered him a two-year, $18-million package.

"Brian, you're not paying me less than you're paying Carl Pavano," Mussina responded. "Don't insult me." Mussina wound up re-signing for two years and $23 million.

In February 2007, after Mussina publicly crushed Pavano in an attempt to make the dim-witted Pavano understand how little credibility he had in the Yankees' clubhouse, the two pitcher held a meeting in a small room in (then) Legends Field. I remember standing outside that room, in the main area of the clubhouse, wondering what they were saying. Mussina was kind enough to tell Feinstein.

"Were you quoted accurately in the papers today?" Pavano asked Mussina.

"Absolutely," Mussina responded.

That was my biggest LOL moment of the entire, 526-page book.

2. Multiple times, Feinstein writes of Glavine's distaste for Jose Reyes' and Lastings Milledge's celebrations from last year. Particularly, Glavine seems to agree with the notion that Reyes' and Milledge's actions in Game 161 of last year motivated the Marlins for the final game, when they spanked Glavine.

Glavine told Feinstein, later: "The last thing we need to be doing is giving people another reason, especially an emotional reason, to want to beat our butts." Glavine immediately knew he was in trouble when Florida's leadoff batter, Hanley Ramirez, came back from 0-and-2 for a walk. Said Glavine: "That told me that these guys weren't here just to get it over with and go home. They had come to play."

3. There was some long-ago tension between Glavine and Mussina, both Players Association loyalists, when Glavine publicly questioned why Mussina signed an under-market extension in 1997. Mussina, a few months away from free agency, re-upped with the Orioles for three years and nearly $21 million, through 2000.

Glavine told reporters, of Mussina: "If a guy wants to give a team a hometown discount, I can understand that, if he thinks it is the best thing for him. But it doesn't help the rest of the guys for him to sign a contract like that."

Yet Mussina got the last laugh. He became a free agent after 2000 and signed a monster, six-year, $88.5-million contract with the Yankees. While Glavine, who signed a four-year extension with the Braves, didn't explore free agency until 2002, by which time he was slightly past his prime and, even more important, the market wasn't as generous. Glavine signed for just three years and $35 million with the Mets.

4. When the Yankees demoted Mussina from the starting rotation to the bullpen last August, Mussina was livid with pitching coach Ron Guidry, who essentially stopped speaking to Mussina. "I'd go by him in the clubhouse, and he'd look right through me," Mussina said of Guidry. "It was as if I'd become a ghost."

Prior to that, however,