On the Mets beat

Maybe if this managing gig doesn’t work out for Willie Randolph, he can get into the sports handicapping business. The Mets’ manager put on a Nostradamus-like act last night, in effect saying he had predicted the Yankees’ just-completed woeful road trip as well as having a premonition that Yadier Molina would hurt his team in last October’s playoffs.
Randolph’s impromptu rant evolved from a discussion about how elements other than statistics can sometimes affect a team’s performance. “That’s why I laugh at people trying to pick the games and who will win,” Randolph said before last night’s game against the Cardinals was rained out. “Just because you’re better on paper doesn’t mean anything, really. It means that you’re good and you have a chance to win.”
Which brought Randolph to his former employer. “Not to get on the Yankees but, I had a feeling the Yankees might have a rough road trip. I’ve been there before,” he said. “They’re playing in Colorado in front of a packed house. These young kids are fired up; they’re facing the Yankees. I look at that – I look at a lot of little things that other people maybe don’t look at. I had a feeling they were going to have a tough trip. San Francisco? That’s another situation.
“They hate the East Coast people,” Randolph said with a laugh. “They’re all fired up out there. Barry Bonds is stealing bases. And they’ve got good young arms. People are saying, ‘Oh the Yankees are going to have a great trip.’ I didn’t think that..”
Not even in Baltimore, always a favorite patsy of the Yankees at Camden Yards in the Joe Torre Era? “They always play well in Baltimore but that was going to turn,” Randolph said sagely. “They fired the manager so the guys were fired up to get going.”
The intangibles that Randolph referred to can even surface in the postseason. He revealed that even though he believed he had the superior team when his Mets faced the Cardinals in last fall’s NLCS, Randolph had some worrisome premonitions. “You’ve got to have quality starters in the playoffs and then you hope everybody’s biorhythms are clicking together. I believe in that, too,” Randolph said.
Then, as soon as some reporters started chuckling, Randolph added, “I believe in that, too. I’m serious. You think the Cardinals were really better than us last year? But I had a feeling Molina was going to have a good series because he had a horse[bleep] year. I just had a feeling that he was going to be one of those unsung hero guys. There’s always one of them. When he hit the home run [in the ninth inning of Game 7 for the winning runs in St. Louis’ 3-1 victory] I wasn’t even surprised. I was more nervous about him than I was about [Albert] Pujols going into the series.”
Wonder if Willie is more worried this weekend about Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz than he is about slugging first baseman Ryan Howard.