Jerry Manual spoke with Chris Russo today on WFAN and will now be in Willie’s weekly spot.

Asked about the difference between himself and Willie Randolph when arguing with umpires:

“There are managers that do things differently. I can’t fault Willie for handling things different. That just happens to be the way I do things. There is no right and wrong.”

Asked about the whether the clubhouse is loose:

“Well, for me it’s all about relationships and it was a difficult thing with the cloud that was hanging over the club. It had nothing to do with how the clubhouse was being run. For me its about relationships more than rules. Rules without relationships leads to rebellion. I try to liberate them a little bit, there will be a time were things will have to get tightened up because there also needs to be a certain discipline amongst a group of men…but at this time, I just felt, let me free it up and let me see what type of player you can be and then at any given time I’ll be able to tighten that up…Yes, the clubhouse was tight. Not because of anything Willie was doing but because of his status. A lot of attention was payed to that and I would say it was difficult for some of the young players to handle.”

Asked about giving David Wright the day off:

“Well, I thought the night before he really showed signs of fatigue offensively and defensively so, I figured I’d better get it out of the way. I do not like giving players days off at home, especially everyday players but I felt it was necessary.”

Asked about the team’s bad play after playing well in Colorado:

“It was a surprise. I think what we were able to identify is that when you don’t hit as a team, you give everybody a chance to beat you regardless what record you have, you become even with them. Everyone can look good when you’re not hitting and yesterday, obviously, Perez wasn’t any good as well.”

Asked if Howard Johnson is responsible for the team not hitting:

“I think its a group effort. HoJo and myself. We have to try to find maybe a better plan how we can win games with the offensive machinery we do have. That part has been somewhat challenging for us to understand what type of team we are versus what type of team we were. We’ve lost, and everyone has lost players don’t get me wrong but without Church, Alou that’s a lot of offense that we are missing. Plus, Delgado has been somewhat of an enigma, he’s been sporadic here and there. So, when you have that combination and when you replace offensive players with strictly defensive players you have to create a different way of scoring runs and winning ball games.”

Asked if Arthur Rhodes dominance over Delgado was Rhodes or Delgado:

“That’s a very good question. I would have to tip my hat to Rhodes because that same night Delgado took another lefty and hit a line drive to left field. So, I thought we were in a good situation with Rhodes in the game because historically teams have been able score on him late in ball games.”

Asked again about the bad play versus Seattle:

“We have played very, very poorly and it’s surprising and we have to find a way to play consistent baseball. We have not played the type of baseball I want especially in front of the passionate fans we have. People are waiting and anticipating and hoping for something good and we haven’t given it to them and its very disappointing.”

Asked about Carlos Beltran and overall team aggressiveness on the bases:

“We are addressing that as we speak because we are not the type of team that can wait. With the group we have on the field on a daily basis we can ill afford not to take advantage of critical base running and base stealing.”

Asked about surprises so far:

“The media has been a surprise…with the questions about the strategy, I always thought there would be a question about a reaction here and there. Its surprising that there are strategic questions being asked…I appreciate it but it was surprising, in the other cities it was more about what was controversial, even though that is a part of it here as well but I seem to get more questions about strategy and that is good for me. I like that.”

Asked about the controversies regarding Willie Randolph and Tony Bernazard:

‘It bothered me because I didn’t think it was fair. I felt I was a tremendous subordinate for Willie and a support for whatever he needed to do. Do I have a lot of different ideas? Of course I do. Now, when news broke that Jerry is the guy quite naturally you begin to in your own way think of things and those are things that have always been with me that I’ve always discussed with Willie right here in his office. So, as soon as that came out Willie asked me and I said hey no one, no one has spoken to me or talked to me about whether I would do this or x,y and z.”