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IGT 06/14, Rangers at Mets

KC Jun 14 2008 03:33 PM

(USA TODAY) The last time it appeared New York Mets manager Willie Randolph was about to lose his job, his club reeled off seven wins in nine games. He could certainly use another victory Saturday when the Mets face the Texas Rangers in the middle game of their interleague series. Amid fresh reports Randolph won?t last through the series against Texas, Mets general manager Omar Minaya was noncommittal Friday when asked whether Randolph has the backing of club executives. ''Bottom line is, I'm just not going to answer every report that's out there,'' Minaya said. ''This is a game of performance and you have to do certain things.'' The Mets (32-34), who have a $138 million payroll, are 7 1/2 games behind division-leading Philadelphia after starting the season expecting to compete for their first World Series title in 22 years. They'd appeared to be motivated after squandering a seven-game lead in the NL East with 17 to play to miss the 2007 playoffs, handing the Phillies the division crown on the final day of the season. New York doesn't appear to have recovered from that epic collapse, and Randolph seemed to be in danger of losing his job on May 26 when ownership called a meeting with him and Minaya to discuss the club's struggles. After he remained at the helm, the Mets responded with a 7-2 stretch. They then dropped six of seven, though, and pressure again mounted on Randolph. Hours after the latest report surfaced on Friday, New York rallied around its embattled manager and beat Texas 7-1 behind an outstanding effort from Oliver Perez. The left-hander allowed one run and three hits with eight strikeouts in seven innings and added two RBIs. ''I'm a fighter,'' said Randolph. ''When the team's losing, I'm going to take that real personal. ''We scored some runs and got to breathe a little bit. It was a big contrast to the way things have been going.'' Now, Randolph turns to Pedro Martinez (1-0, 6.91 ERA), who looks to resume his dominance of the Rangers (34-35). The 36-year-old right-hander is 9-2 with a 1.90 ERA in 13 career starts against the Rangers, but hasn't faced them since 2005, when he was with Boston. Martinez is coming off a shaky outing in Sunday's 8-6 loss at San Diego. The three-time Cy Young Award winner allowed four runs and 10 hits in five innings, although he did not factor in the decision. That outing came five days after Martinez looked strong in yielding three runs and seven hits in six innings of a 9-6 win at San Francisco - his first start since missing more than two months with a hamstring injury. Martinez will have to contend with Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton, who went 2-for-4 with a homer Friday and is 7-for-14 with two RBIs over his last three games. Hamilton's 18 homers lead the AL while his 72 RBIs are tops in the majors. As they try to avoid their first three-game losing streak since May 18-20, the Rangers will send Kason Gabbard (1-2, 4.75) to the mound, replacing Doug Mathis. Gabbard started the season in the rotation, but had been hit hard in his last three starts, going 0-2 with an 11.25 ERA. That poor stretch led to him being sent to Triple-A Oklahoma on May 30, two days after he was reached for five runs and five hits with six walks in 4 1-3 innings of a 5-3 loss at Tampa Bay.

metirish Jun 14 2008 04:11 PM

Reyes, ss Castillo, 2b Wright, 3b Beltran, cf Easley, lf Delgado, 1b Castro, c Chavez, rf Martinez, rhp

KC Jun 14 2008 04:12 PM

Clara, get Horowitz on the phone and ask him why the lineup from Houston has been online for almost an hour-and-a-half and the one from Shea is tardy again.

KC Jun 14 2008 04:32 PM

Kinslar 2b Young ss Hamilton cf Bradley rf Murphy lf Catalanotto 1b Laird c Vazquez 3b Gabbard p

Frayed Knot Jun 14 2008 05:00 PM

Gabbard, Gabbard, Hey! Both he and LFer Murphy were the guys they got from the BoSox last year for 6 weeks of Eric Gagne. Nice haul for a guy who was a FA amd sucked once he left town. Murphy especially was a former 1st round draft pick and is having a good season. And it's Rain Delay Theatre to start off the evening.

KC Jun 14 2008 05:48 PM

Gary cites ambiguous radar and says they may be awhile. Channel 11 has Odd Couple episodes on even though the rain delay is on SNY.

metirish Jun 14 2008 06:28 PM

Game rained out. Double header Sunday.

AG/DC Jun 14 2008 07:16 PM

Gives us a chance to get Nixon in uniform.

Gwreck Jun 14 2008 07:31 PM

I took a big liking to the Rangers tonight. First, a large group (about 10) of them came out when the rain first started to let up and stood at the top step of the dugout, posing for pictures and signing tons of autographs. Second, much later, as it was appearing the game might not get played, six of them came running out of the dugout and did bellyflops, sliding across the tarp....and then got up, and took a running start the other way from the outfield to the delight of the crowd, who they were waving on for support. Eventually, security ushered them off the tarp and back into the dugout, at whicih point they came running out again for an encore performance.

metirish Jun 14 2008 07:34 PM

They showed them playing on the tarp , I thought that was great.

Frayed Knot Jun 15 2008 08:33 AM

Late night radio callers saw the absence of Mets slip-sliding on the wet tarp as an indictment of Willie's regime.

Benjamin Grimm Jun 15 2008 09:01 AM

Of course they would! I bet it went something like this: Rangers are loose, Willie's Mets are uptight.

SteveJRogers Jun 15 2008 11:11 AM

Remember the Ventura as Piazza bit in 2000 at YS? Apparently Michael Kay had a conniption because he thought it was Piazza, well and also he thought it was a silly stunt for anyone to do. I wonder how many of the callers saying how it showed that the Rangers are loose and the Mets are "uptight" would be uttering Kay's words if a Met did that and hurt himself (twist an ankle I guess would be the common thing).

Gwreck Jun 15 2008 03:01 PM

Generally, the best idea is not to worry about what the morons calling WFAN might be thinking.

Frayed Knot Jun 15 2008 03:06 PM

Gwreck wrote: Generally, the best idea is not to worry about what the morons calling WFAN might be thinking. I don't, I just threw it out there as an example of how nutty this Willie stuff has become. He's criticized for his players NOT playign slip-n-slide on the tarp, he'd most likely to be criticized if they DID go sliding, and it's come to the point where I'm a bit surprised he wasn't criticized for the rain itself.

Gwreck Jun 15 2008 03:09 PM

I was really responding to Steve's post about "I wonder how many of the callers..."

RealityChuck Jun 15 2008 03:25 PM Game highlight