In his column today in the NY Post Kevin Kernan has some quotes from David Wright regarding Willie Randolph that may surprise some. David told Kernan that:

“There is another side to Randolph, I’ve seen him throw chairs. I’ve seen him flip tables. I’ve seen him kick people in the butt, The motivation is there, now it’s completely up to us as players to go out there and do our jobs and to get it done.”

So, maybe the Wally Backman, Larry Bowa and Lou Pinella side of Willie is not talked about much, but according to Wright there is a side to Willie that can be Mark Foleyesque. Maybe if he were to be thrown out of games the way Bobby Cox is, just to prove to us that he cares, he’d accumulate as many rings as Cox has. Yeah, and with all that talent for all those many years in Atlanta, one ring would have been suffice here in NY? … No, folks, he would have been getting tossed from games elsewhere a long long time ago.

According to Dan Graziano of the Star Ledger, the Mets brass is planning on a reevaluation at the end of the month.

The team is disappointed that they are not playing up to their potential, and will look at the idea of replacing manager Willie Randolph. However, if the Mets remain in contention, Randolph will likely keep his job through the season.

Right now, I think its too early to replace a manager, we still have to see what we’ve got. Yet, if we’re still hovering around .500 come June, I’d be in favor of pulling the trigger on Willie. If we’re still around .500 come June, it means lots of the team is still under performing, like Carlos Beltran and Oliver Perez. Under performing, as well as having a fan base that seems like it wants to win more than the team wants to, is a sure sign that its time for a change.

Hat tip to Mets Blog for the link.

Took a look around the interwebs and some sports talk radio and this is what I found.

First up, Brian Schneider visited with Benigno and Roberts on their midday show on WFAN. Scheider told them even though he “hasn’t swung a bat yet” if they need him in an emergency he would “go out there”.

Asked if he had any thoughts on Oliver Perez, Brian said

“I just want to see an adjustment” when struggling with control. “I’ll go out there”, to the mound, “and tell him I don’t care if you throw the next two pitches in the dirt or if you hit this guy”… “He has to make an adjustment and I didn’t see that”.

Then I found these two nuggets that could kinda make you of scratch your head. First Adam Rubin of the Daily News tells us how higher-ups in Mets management mulled over the idea of replacing Rick Peterson this past off-season and Ed Ryan of Mets Fever points us towards a ESPN Jayson Stark article that reads:

So can Barry Zito ever get straightened out? We surveyed a half-dozen scouts and executives, and we found only one who thought he could. And that was a scout who said his only hope was to get reunited with Rick Peterson, “the only [pitching coach] Barry Zito ever had success with.”

So, baseball “experts” mull over whether Peterson was the problem with the Mets last year. Then six months later he might be the answer to one of the biggest flops in baseball free agency history…jeez.

Tim Marchman of the NY Sun has had enough of Willie Randolph an writes there’s nothing that Willie can do to change his mind:

It’s time for the Mets to fire Willie Randolph. They should fire him if his team sweeps the Arizona Diamondbacks this weekend. They should fire him if his team wins all three games by a total score of 27-0. They should fire him if his team puts on such a display this weekend that the greater Phoenix area literally burns to the ground around them, lit by nothing but the intensity of their passion and brilliance. The man’s time is up, and nothing can change that.

Jason at Faith and Fear in Flushing could not agree more.

NY Times Ben Shpigel gives us a pre-preview of the Arizona series in a small post he titled The Mets Past, Present and Future in Arizona.

Mets.com Marty Noble tells us about some bad memories Billy Wagner has from a ball that ricocheted off his head ten years ago in Phoenix.

Jeff Bercovici of Portfolio.com has a story about ex-Met Lenny Dykstra and some trouble he’s having with his publishing venture.

Lastly, Matt Cerrone over at Mets Blog writes about a story from the NY Post’s page six regarding Carlos Beltran’s 31st birthday party at Sofrito. Among other guest’s Jennifer Lopez was in attendance. Matt goes on to quote the page six story:

“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any wilder, Jennifer Lopez grabbed the birthday boy and shook her world-renowned booty. Then, the crowd improvised a song with the lyric, “We’re going to win the World Series.”

Then Matt totally cracked me up with this remark to finish up his post:

…take note, as this may be the first and last time the term world-renowned booty appears on MetsBlog…

After yesterday’s ugly loss to the Bucs the story had to be the worrisome performance of Oliver Perez. Even though Willie Randolph did criticize Perez after the game on WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog, he was mostly tempered.

But according to Adam Rubin from the Daily News Billy Wagner was not gonna let Ollie’s poor effort go by without making his opinion heard. Billy came out swinging putting the blame on Perez for not having more “willpower” and “desire”. He felt that Perez should have realized that the bullpen had been overworked and to take it upon himself to log some innings. Here’s what Wagner said:

“You’ve got to have that willpower and that desire to go back out there and fight,”. “This guy (Pirates starter Tom Gorzelanny), he wasn’t throwing the ball that well to shut down our offense. Perez has honestly got to step up and know that we’ve just used every guy in our bullpen the night before. He can’t come out there and decide that gee, he hasn’t got it today, and so be it.”

Also, in Bart Hubbach’s game story for the NY Post when Wagner was asked if talking to Perez about his notoriously short attention span was like trying to talk to a wall, Wagner pointed his finger and said: “Pretty much.”

For more notes and quotes about Wagner, Reyes, and Figgy, go to Adam’s Daily News Blog Surfing The Mets.

According to Ed Ryan’s blog Mets Fever the Mets have signed 29 year old 1B/OF Valentino Pascucci who was recently released by the Phillies.

Pascucci will join the Mets triple A affiliate New Orlean Zephyrs along with Brady Clark who was sent down when Gustavo Molina was promoted.

In his column at Newsday Kevin Davidoff writes that only time will tell if the Yankees made a mistake by not giving up Phil Hughes in a deal that could have landed them Johan Santana. Davidoff goes on to write:

Omar Minaya performed an excellent job in waiting for the Twins to settle for what still looks like an uninspiring package of players. Have you seen Carlos Gomez’s numbers? Yeesh. As you can see here, Kevin Mulvey is pitching decently for Triple-A Rochester, while Phil Humber is not. Deolis Guerra is pitching all right at Class A Fort Myers.

But you can bet that Minaya, who is set to ignore baseball’s slotting system for the amateur draft after adhering to it the last couple of years, wants to build his organization to a point where it doesn’t have to invest nine figures in a pitcher from another team in order to pick up an ace.

Davidoff went on to write that that the Santana trade will allow the Mets to close Shea Stadium with their first World Series title since 1986.

Over at my favorite Mets blog name Church of the Fonz they decided to look “On the Bright Side” of yesterday and focus on Aaron Heilman’s two perfect innings and this quote from former Met Doug Mientkiewicz on Johan Santana:

“Let’s put it this way: When that team needs him the most, he’s going to be there. Come August and September, he’s going to be dominant.”

The NY Post’s Joel Sherman from his HardBall blog thinks Willie might be overusing the bullpen and he has some pretty startling numbers to back up his assertions. Sherman also has some thoughts on Oliver Perez and his probable free agency problems.

Former Met and now SNY studio analyst Darryl Strawberry is writing a book about his life. According to this AP report Strawberry will collaborate with John Strausbaugh on his memoir.

In an article about how rainouts are handled in MLB I saw this interesting tid-bit that may come in handy to Mets fans who may not know about it, I know I didn’t. At CNBC.com referring to the Monday’s rain out vs the Pirates:

The Mets have an extremely generous policy. If you really wanted to see the Pirates and can’t make this homestand, you can use this exact ticket for the makeup game on Aug. 11. If you want, you can also exchange your ticket for a seat of a similar value or use the money towards a credit towards a seat for this year (the final season in Shea Stadium) or next year (in the new facility).

Lastly, back to the Willie Randolph interview with Mike and the Mad Dog. Willie was asked about Carlos Beltran’s sluggish start at the plate and Willie said that he doesn’t think that Carlos is 100% yet, coming off surgery on both knees. He’s still having problems with strength, pushing off his back leg in the batter’s box. But he’s working hard with Howard Johnson and he will be fine.

This is classic Wagner here, I love it. Some tough love for Ollie, hopefully it helps. I get the the feeling he’s the type of guy who wants to be liked so maybe this will be the push he needs… My only concern regarding Beltran is playing on weak knees. I hope he can continue to play and strengthen his knees simultaneously. He has hit a ton a shots right at guys and he has played a flawless centerfield.

Johan Santana, Endy Chavez and Willie Randolph spoke with the media after last nights extra inning 5-4 Mets win over the Pirates at Shea. First up Johan,

Johan Santana was asked about the home runs he surrendered:

“The first guy (Nate McLouth) we had some scouting reports that he takes a few pitches (he jumped on the first pitch) but what can you do I didn’t execute. Home runs are part of the game. They (the Pirates) battled, they fouled off a lot of pitches. The most important part is we, as a team got the win.”

Asked if he heard the cheers when he was removed from the game:

“Yes, I did, I guess they appreciated what I did tonight and that’s always good. But the thing is you always gotta have that support, day in and day out because they (the fans) are big part of what we do here. The bad days and the good days. If they are always out there supporting us then you feel more comfortable. That goes for everybody, that’s the way it is. But we understand they are very demanding fans in this city and they always want to win and there’s nothing wrong with that. But at the same time we are human beings we’re gonna make mistakes, sometimes we’re not gonna have a good day but it’s all how you bounce back and hopefully the results will be very positive for the whole team.”

Endy Chavez, who had three hits spoke with WFAN’s Eddie Coleman:

“I’m glad I got three hits, I feel good at the plate. It helps me to be in there, it keeps me sharp, i’ve seen a lot of pitches and that helps a lot… I think he (Santana) did a pretty good job, I think when he was a little wild the umpire was pretty tough but he’s a tough pitcher and he hung in there for us and he did a pretty good job.”

Willie Randolph:

Asked about David Wright’s game winning hit and his struggles of late:

“When he does what he did in that situation (walk off hit) he’s pretty effective, every once in awhile he starts pulling off the ball and gets out of rhythm. He’s one of the best on the team going the other way, he had a great approach right there and got a big hit for us.”

About Jose Reyes getting on base last night:

“Any time you have your lead-off man on base six times you gotta score more runs. We left too many runners on tonight. We have to make sure we do a better job of situational hitting and just putting the ball in play in big spots. We had a chance when we were up 4-2 to put them away. We have to do a better job of execution, it takes a lot of pressure off your bullpen. If you can add on those extra runs it really frees up your bullpen.”

On Santana:

“I thought he threw the ball great. He had like forty foul balls, something like that. He was just nasty tonight. They kept battling, they kept fighting. He made a couple of mistakes but he deserved to win the game but we didn’t pick up those ducks which made it tough.”

Asked what Santana said when Willie went to the mound before he hit Xavier Nady:

“He said he wanted him. I just wanted to go out and see how he was feeling. I’m trying to get to know him a little bit. I need to comunicate with him, find out how he feels. I need him to be honest with me. But as soon as I got out there he said “no I got this guy, I want this guy” that one ball just kind of got away from him, kinda sailed. He’s a competitor, he felt strong it was cool out so, I’m gonna trust him when he tells me he wants to compete. He still one of the best.”

All the Santana quotes were great. When he was asked about the fans reaction towards him he spoke about their reaction but related it to the team, which I loved. When Willie spoke about about Santana saying “I got this guy”, “I want this guy” the results don’t even matter, the fact that we are finding out that Santana has some bulldog in him is fantastic. He battled through some foul balls and the elements last night. So far there is nothing not to like about our ace.