On Fox Sports MLB pre-game show Ken Rosenthal reported that “Willie Randolph is one losing patch away from being fired” and if that does happen Rosenthal said, “Howard Johnson and Rick Peterson will also be fired”.

In honor of Kevin-B-Illin from last night’s Willie Randolph press conference…

You Be Illin - Run DMC

Head over to Mets Blog for the full scoop.

Bobby Valentine, on WFAN’s midday show with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts said he sees the Mets going all the way to the World Series this year and thinks Willie Randolph will take them further than he ever did.

“I think it’s their year. I think it’s destiny for this team,” Valentine said. “I see the Yankees New York Yankees making a run, but I can see the Mets making a run that gets them to the World Series and a win in the World Series.”

Valentine said he could see himself returning to the states to coach a MLB team again but right now he’s happy where he is.

“I think Willie is going to turn that thing around and have a wonderful managerial career. Whether or not I end up back in MLB or in New York that will (be) somebody else’s offer and then my decision to have to make afterwards, but right now I am where I am and I have a job.”

I know there are mixed feelings about Valentine amongst Mets fans but I am firmly entrenched in the Bobby V fan club. I miss having him around and wish him the best of luck in Japan. I hope someday down the line he finds his way back into the Mets organization.

Marty Noble of MLB.com writes about Mike Pelfrey’s possible demotion and his reaction:

“I know I pitched well enough to win two of those games,” he said. “I had a no-hitter going in one. But I’ve been disappointed with the others. I haven’t pitched well. I know that. That’s why I hate the game right now. It’s miserable. I’m miserable. I haven’t been able to command my pitches. When I do, I win. But it just isn’t there.”

Ed Ryan of Mets Fever lobbies for Tony Armas Jr. to be promoted. Armas has been pitching great for the New Orleans Zephyr’s, Ryan writes:

Tony Armas Jr. is absolutely dominating AAA…Armas deserves a start and then could be moved into the pen as a true long-man. Last night Tony Armas went seven innings in which he allowed one run on six hits, no walks while striking out seven his ERA is at 2.23.

Anthony Rieber of Newsday’s The Final Score points us towards a newspaper columnist ( Pete Colaizzo of the Poughkeepsie Journal ) that actually wants Willie Randolph to remain as Mets manager and this is before yesterday’s win.

SI.com’s Jon Heyman tells us that Mets brass wonder if Aaron Heilman is “tightening up in tough situations” since his stuff is still very good. Heyman also writes a bit about Gary Carter lobbying for Willie’s job and Keith Hernandez’ reaction.

The folks over at the blog formerly known as Mets Geek received a lot of attention because of their name change to Rays Geek. Hot Foot’s own Anthony De Rosa wrote about it here. But according to the USA TODAY not all the attention has been positive:

“We were starting to get death threats from Rays fans that they hadn’t won since we switched the banner,” Eric Simon of Rays Geek said.

Willie Randolph was on WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog program today.

Did the meeting on Monday bring any closure?

“In my mind it did we have to continue to go out and win ball games, nothing is etched in stone, I understand that. We talked (he and the Wilpon’s) and put closure to it in our minds but we really talked a lot about the team. We talked about how we can get better.”

Was he disappointed that they didn’t commit long term?

“I felt all along that I’m the guy, but obviously I’m going to be here if we continue to play well and if we don’t then they have a decision to make. I didn’t need to hear that cause my focus and my main concern is to get this team pointed in the right direction.”

Do your Coaches and Players feel like this is your team and that you are not going anywhere?

“I think they do today. Initially I’m sure there was a little uncomfortableness around the ballpark that particular day. My coaches were concerned and I could sense my players were a little on their heels that day. We had a nice meeting, I told my players that my situation was not their concern. Just to focus on playing baseball. We just need to play the way we are capable of playing that’s the bottom line. I just challenged them all because we need to be accountable if we get the job done then all this stuff will go away.”

Which loss last week was the worst?

“Well, I thought the sweep in Atlanta, you can’t get swept like that. We came off the great series against the Yankees… we should have gone in there and played better than that. Three in a row would have been bad but you can’t lose four in a row.”

Asked about Jose Reyes?

“It’s funny, it could be focus because you lack confidence. I think with Jose sometimes he tries so hard and he tries to do so much that it backfires on. When you try to do too much even in the field you start to make mistakes. You try too hard, too quick, you try to do too much, He’s gonna be fine, his game is just so high speed, he just gets a little out of kilter.”

On Carlos Delgado:

“I spoke to him yesterday, I told him you’re struggling you need to exhale. Go out in the cage, don’t overwork, just clear your mind, I’m gonna give you a couple of days and he’ll probably be back in there tomorrow. It’s very rare that you can win without your four and five guys not hitting.”

Asked if he was nervous before Monday’s meeting?

“No, I was a little concerned about how I may react. I know I have a temper and I’m passionate about what I do and I’m very proud of who I am and what I do for this ball club and this organization. I just wanted to express myself and let them express themselves. I wasn’t nervous I was just making sure that I didn’t lose my cool.”

You think you’ve been given a fair deal?

“Yeah, every time we get together, Fred and Jeff just want to make this team better. They always listen to suggestions and they always ask how can we help you guys get better and that’s all you can ask from your ownership.”

Former Astros Manager Phil Garner was a guest today on XM Radio “The Show” with Host’s Rob Dibble and Kevin Kennedy. Garner, who managed Carlos Beltran offered some interesting insight about Beltran’s personality and how to get the most out of him:

“Carlos Beltran is not going to be a team captain or a verbal leader and that isn’t a slight to Carlos Beltran or any player for that matter,”…”He always performed best when he was hitting 2 in the lineup, he may shy away from attention sometimes, when I hit him in the 3 hole he struggled.”

Garner also spoke about how he can relate to what Willie Randolph is going through:

“It’s not a good feeling when people are trying to lobby for your job…it’s just not right and if someone is going through that, it’s not fun, believe me.”

Garner goes on to talk about what a bad job the Mets brass did handling yesterday’s meeting and how making Willie a lame duck is counter productive. Go to MLB on XM blog to read more excerpts from this interview.

SI.com’s Jon Heyman was a guest of WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog today.

On the Heyman/Carlos Delgado incident:

“What happened yesterday is I asked a question I thought I’d get an answer to…This is before they announced that Willie Randolph was coming back. I had an inkling he was probably coming back. I asked him, should Willie be the manager? All he had to do was say yes or it’s not my place to answer. He started to say it’s not my place to answer. But then he gave me a big wink so I started to see he wasn’t too happy with the question and then he added If your gonna be an ass then I can be an ass. Then he started to tell me what a bad question it was. I said well it’s the question on everybody’s mind. Then later, I guess he wasn’t satisfied with our exchange, later he came up within one inch of me, he was like one inch from me, he was like eyeball to eyeball and again he was berating me about the question. But I’m happy with question because it got me the answer. The answer would be, yes I think Willie should be the manager and if he didn’t say that then I have my answer. Obviously he doesn’t love Willie Randolph as the manager, at least that’s the conclusion I draw, he probably doesn’t love me as a reporter either…Isn’t the obvious answer yes Willie should be the manager, we support him, we love him, we want Willie to be the manager. I didn’t get that at all. He gave me the it’s not my place answer, which is fine we’ll leave it that, which is what David Wright said basically. But the fact that he got this upset about it, he (Delgado) even said something like you should ask me when we’re not in a group. I guess he felt like I was putting pressure on him but you know this is a big city, what are you gonna do. I just think he was in a bad mood. Obviously he’s nearing the end of his career, he’s not playing well, he’s getting booed. I think it was just a bad moment for him. That’s the way I look at it. Maybe somebody thought it was a bad moment for me but I thought he shouldn’t of done that.”

On Willie:

“Well, I think what happened was the Wilpon’s want stability. They did a study, they had their people do a study about what it’s like when teams change the manager a lot and they found out that it’s normally not a thing that is conducive to winning. That it doesn’t usually help you too much. You may get a shot in the arm for a game or two but that’s about it. They realized that there was not an ideal candidate. I think Jerry Manuel was a guy who was a possibility but I think to them and probably to many people he’s reminiscent of Willie in many ways. He’s a low key guy. He’s a nice guy. I know he got thrown out of the game the other day which Willie didn’t do and I think the Mets people wanted to see Willie get thrown out. They’re just not happy. They’re not thrilled with Willie and obviously they’re not thrilled with the way things are going. There was no way they could fire him last year. They just couldn’t, this is a guy who won 83 games then improved to 97 wins. He was one bad change-up from Aaron Heilman from going to the World Series. Then of course they had the collapse but they still won 88 games. I was even surprised they let him twist last year but I don’t think they are satisfied with him as the manager but they feel they don’t have a better alternative. That’s basically what it comes down to. They don’t want to be seen as a team that keeps changing managers. I don’t believe it can be the money. They just tossed away Jorge Sosa, that was two million dollars right out the window. That’s a very small amount of money for a billion dollar company.”

On Omar Minaya

“Omar is the biggest supporter Willie’s got I do think there other are people in the front office that are not as big a supporter as Omar but Omar is the one making this call. You can look at it a couple of different ways, if Omar switched to someone else, say Jerry Manuel or someone else and the team played the same then the onus is on Omar. But then again if he sticks with Willie and things stay the way they are well its still on Omar. I don’t believe it was to save himself or to keep himself further away from the chopping block. I think he genuinely likes Willie he grew up a Yankee fan. He was one of his heros. He’s a likable guy. He did do good things his first few years but the problem with this team is its not a resilient team. I know earlier in the year they won a game, they came back from a bad defeat and won a game and Willie started talking about how resilient they looked but the fact is they have not shown any resiliency whatsoever.”

On why they didn’t commit to Willie for the whole season yesterday:

“Well, two things, first I don’t think they love Willie and they are not sure if he’s gonna be here for the year and they don’t want to lie. The other thing is they think holding something over Willie like this might trigger something. I don’t know, they’ve tried this before, during the subway series they told him you better turn it around and you better turn it around fast. He won the two games and then disaster struck. He had a horrible week, the comments that were made. That was discussed at the meeting. It was a very bad meeting for Willie I’m sure, very uncomfortable. They are just not pleased at all.”

For more on Reyes. Plus, Heyman tells a story about Rickey Henderson “taking” money from some players while playing cards last season that “guys were not pleased with”. Go to WFAN.com to listen.

While many players showed their support for Willie Randolph following his two and a half hour meeting with Mets ownership, Carlos Delgado had this quote regarding if he thinks Randolph should be the Mets manager, on ESPN News

“I’m not in the position to think or not think, they don’t pay me to think. They pay me to play baseball.”

Delgado is right. He does get paid to play, so maybe he should start playing up to the level of money the Mets are paying him.

Jon Heyman of SI.com prodded Delgado, asking him to address the question of if he thinks Willie Randolph should be the manager, to which Delgado replied,

“If you wanna be an ass, I can be an ass too.”

Most players put it on themselves, saying that Willie doesn’t deserve the blame, and that its up to the players to turn things around. Carlos Beltran was supportive, and said Willie should remain as manager. He said that someone should speak to the team about Willie’s status and he’d prefer they tell them that Willie would remain with the team through the end of the season, John Delcos of the Journal News reports.

“I think they should say that,” Beltran said. “It is a distraction. The reality is people say it doesn’t effect the ballclub but it does. You come to the ballpark wondering what’s going to happen.”

Omar Minaya said that Willie was never in danger of losing his job and that the controversy was a creation of the media. They simply wanted to speak to him in person about the comments he made regarding SNY and wanted to discuss a game plan to improve the team going forward.

As players were talking to media, David Wright walked through the clubhouse clapped his hands and said “We got a game to play tonight guys”

Keith Hernandez had some critical remarks during today’s Mets broadcast regarding Gary Carter expressing his desire to take over the Mets managerial job from Willie Randolph,

“I have great respect for Gary as a player,” said Hernandez, “He’s a Hall of Famer. When Johnny Bench left the game, he was the premier catcher in the National League.

“But, that being said, and I’ve kept quiet for such a long time, but for the people out there listening, just go in the dictionary and look up ‘unconscious’ and you’ll find a picture of Gary Carter.

“I know that’s strong, but it just happens too many times and it’s just, you’re walking around unconscious.

Before Keith’s comments, Gary Cohen was equally critical of Carter.

“Regardless of what happens, you can’t be any more indelicate or graceless than Gary Carter was in saying the things he said about being available to take over the job. I just cannot believe that Carter said what he said.”

If you read any of the accounts of the famed 1986 Mets, you’ll find that many teammates found Carter to be a bit overbearing, which led to his nickname “Camera Carter” as he often seeked out the press for his own self-flagellation. Keith seems to still bear some of that annoyance of Carter, and wasn’t shying away from expressing it in light of him undermining Willie Randolph.