With rumors swirling about his future, Willie Randolph threw a team meeting before last night's game at Yankee Stadium. It worked. The Mets didn't lose their third straight game. They didn't win either, the game was rained out, but Willie will probably take what he can get these days. Everyone came out of the meeting with smiles and full of sunshine but the dark clouds remain.

The focus of the meeting was defusing any tensions created by Billy Wagner's comments following Thursday's loss. Wagner said he apologized to Carlos Delgado, alleged to be the guy Wagner was calling out, and then accused the evil media of blowing things out of proportion.

"I shouldn't be here right now. I shouldn't be answering this stupid stuff about something that was taken out of somebody's imagination, saying I'm pointing out my teammates when I didn't point out anybody."

In case you missed it, here's what Wagner said.

"Someone tell me why the (expletive) you're talking to the closer. I didn't even play. They're over there, not being interviewed. ... I got it. They're gone. (Expletive) shocker."

Gosh, wherever would you get the idea that he's pointing his teammates out. Wagner was specifically told to keep his mouth shut by Randolph after he ripped Oliver Perez. His response was to rip more teammates and then act indignant that anyone noticed.

Whether or not Randolph's lost the clubhouse, the perception is that he has. The only way to change that perception is a nice, long winning streak. Anything else could mean curtains.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Oakland Athletics (23-19) at Atlanta Braves (20-20) - 7:10 PM ET

It's probably safe to say that out of the former "Big Three" in Oakland, Tim Hudson has been the most successful of the bunch since leaving the nest after the 2004 season. Four seasons later, Hudson faces his former club for the first time (the two teams played a three game set in '05 but Hudson did not make an appearance). A lot of Hudson's old teammates from his last season in Oakland are gone, but his mound opponent for today, Rich Harden, is still around. And Harden was hoping he'd match up against him. Harden is probably also hoping that he makes it through the game intact.

Major League Baseball announced the All-Star coaching staffs as selected Terry Francona and Clint Hurdle today. Assisting Francona with the AL squad will be Tigers manager Jim Leyland and Yankees manager Joe Girardi, in addition to the rest of his Red Sox staff, while Hurdle picked Padres manager Bud Black and Mets manager Willie Randolph, in addition to his Rockies staff, to help with the NL.

The selections seem completely arbitrary: as my collegue Pat Lackey pointed out over email, it seems odd that Black is getting the honor given that San Diego currently has the worst record in baseball and completely collapsed down the stretch last year. The selection of Leyland is equally confusing given Detroit's slow start.

Have you seen A Bronx Tale? If so, you'll likely remember the scene where 'C' asks Sonny if it's better to be loved or feared. Sonny answers that it's nice to be both, but it's difficult. He preferred to be feared but I think either approach works for a big league manager.

Guys like Billy Martin have won titles and so have ones like Joe Torre, the key is that you have to be one or the other. Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes today that part of the reason Willie Randolph may be in trouble with the Mets is because his players neither love him nor fear him.


If you had to choose one word to describe the way the Mets have taken the field this season, indifferent would be a very good choice. It's not that they aren't playing hard enough or with enough emotion, though both have been lacking at times, it just seems like they don't care all that much.

Just about every time you hear word of a sports transaction it's followed by a reminder that the deal is pending the player's successful passage of a physical. Usually that's a formality but, every now and then, you hear that a player fails and the deal falls apart.

One of those failures was in November when a seemingly done deal between Yorvit Torrealba and the Mets fell apart at the last minute. The Mets never publicly said what happened but all reports pointed to Torrealba's right shoulder as the reason for their change of heart. That hasn't sat well with the Rockie catcher or his agent so they've filed a grievance against the Mets for pulling the $14.4 million offer after a term sheet was signed.

Torrealba returned to the Rockies on a two-year, $7.25 million deal, with a mutual option for $4 million. The grievance will center on Torrealba's potential lost income. Even if the Rockies exercise his option, Torrealba stands to lose $3.15 million.

Now, my legal education may consist of a video shown before serving jury duty some years ago but term sheets and contracts aren't the same thing. Unless the Mets are using some real cut-rate attorneys, I'd guess that one of the terms they insisted on including was Torrealba's ability to pass a physical. Short of reneging on a signed contract, which the Mets aren't accused of, I don't see much justification for his aggrieved status.

Billy Wagner isn't happy that he's one of the few guys on the Mets willing to talk to the media after losses. After ripping his teammates in the clubhouse following yesterday's game (it's even more entertaining when you watch the video), he poured gas on the fire by doing it again on the radio. David Lennon of Newsday transcribed some of Wagner's comments to ESPN 1050's Michael Kay:

KAY: I know you're a good quote, but that doesn't excuse other people from not being there ...

WAGNER: Well, I mean, it gets frustrating for some of the guys that are there. Whether I'm there or David Wright or whoever is there constantly, there comes a point where they don't need to be answering the questions that should go to someone else. Then it causes that tension because my opinion on something may not be the way it really was.

Is calling out your teammates the best way for one of the leaders of this team to act? Probably not, but that's part of Wagner's point: he doesn't actually see himself as the team's leader.

It's gone from bad to worse for the New York Mets. The bad? Losing three out of four to the Washington Nationals, wasting two great outings from their starting pitching in the process. Worse? Billy Wagner tearing his teammates a new one for ducking the media after their latest debacle, a 1-0 loss where they couldn't get Mike Pelfrey a win after he no-hit the Nats for six innings.

Wagner looked over toward the area of first baseman Carlos Delgado's locker and blurted: "Someone tell me why the (expletive) you're talking to the closer. I didn't even play. They're over there, not being interviewed. ... I got it. They're gone. (Expletive) shocker."

There once was a time where Paul Lo Duca complained about the media going to the same three or four guys after ballgames. Problem was that Lo Duca's message was blurred by the fact that he made a comment about the rest of the team being able to "speak english", causing a small racial controversy. Now with these comments by Wagner, we know that these issues within the clubhouse have nothing to do with race ... it has everything do to with players not making themselves accountable for this season which seems to be spiraling out of control.

And while you may dismiss this as Billy being Billy again, maybe Billy needs to be Billy and start causing some sort of commotion and get some things aired out. The Mets are playing some terrible baseball lately (with that roster, one game over .500 does qualify as terrible), and somebody has got to do (or say) something. It doesn't seem to be their manager Willie Randolph, who when we last saw him, was standing in the dugout like a statue while one of his best hitters (Moises Alou) was ejected from the ball game on Wednesday night. The fact that it's the reliever who's pitched all of 15 and 2/3's innings that's the one trying to light a fire in Flushing should tell you something about the direction this team is headed (hint: not up.)

Wednesday was a day to forget for Scott Schoeneweis. He woke up early in the morning with severe stomach pains that were so bad he eventually called an ambulance. From Anthony Rieber of Newsday:

"I thought I was going to die," Schoeneweis, who has survived testicular cancer, said from Shea Stadium after the Mets' 5-3 loss to the Nationals.

[...] "The scary thing was I was in severe pain," he said. "I mean, I've been through a lot of stuff. For me to call an ambulance, I was in dire straits. I looked at my arm and my arms were like blue, my hands and stuff, and I was like, 'I need to do something. I just can't lay here. '"

Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing serious. After being treated with IV fluids and nausea medication and undergoing a CT scan and bloodwork, his doctor thinks that he either had a pretty nasty stomach bug or maybe even torn some internal scar tissue from his cancer surgery back in 1993. So now that we know he's okay, we can take a moment to enjoy a bit of humor that came of this ...

Paul Lo Duca has been on the DL most of the season with a broken wrist, and isn't going to be back until close to the all-star break. That's too bad, because it means we're not going to hear nearly as many great quotes out of Lo Duca as we normally would. Thank goodness that the Nationals let Lo Duca travel on the road trip to New York (the Nats don't usually let injured players travel, but gave Lo Duca a pass because he lives in NY), or else we probably wouldn't have heard Paul's take on "Cheer-gate" and Nelson Figueroa, courtesy of his appearance on WFAN (through Adam Rubin's Mets blog at the Daily News):

"I don't know. I'm not a big fan of it to be honest with you. I'll be honest with you. You know, we're struggling. Guys are just trying to have a little fun. I think they saw Figueroa getting a little upset, so they amped it up a couple of notches. I do think it's a little bush league. At first it started off as a little fun, until he got mad. I don't agree with it. But, also, Nelson Figueroa has nine wins in the big leagues and he needs to keep his mouth shut."

So I'm confused, it was all right until Figueroa got mad ... but Figueroa shouldn't actually tell anybody he's mad? I see. Sounds like Lo Duca didn't want to take sides and just hate each side of the argument equally.

Speaking of hate, some who formally loved Lo Duca now may hate him because of his appearance in The Mitchell Report, which was more than a mere cameo. Until now, all we've heard from Lo Duca was the prepared apology. While on WFAN, he went into it in a little more detail.

Every kid's been told by his parents, probably more than once, that life isn't fair. Nelson Figueroa would probably agree with that sentiment. He worked his tail off after a 2004 stint with the Pirates, traveled anywhere they'd let him pitch and made it back to the big leagues with the Mets this season. He made a couple of decent starts but quickly dropped below the standards of a major league starter culminating with last night's poor performance against Washington.

He blamed that poor performance on the "softball girl" behavior of the Nats in the dugout but his last few starts make that hard to accept. Figueroa's happy story had taken a bad turn and got worse today when the Mets designated him for assignment today to make room for Claudio Vargas.

If he reads an account of his reaction to the Nats razzing of him from the dugout, he mocked their lowly position in the standings by saying "they are who they are," it must be particularly painful. The Nationals may be bad but they're major leaguers, something Figueroa isn't anymore. Also painful is that the razzing was led by Elijah Dukes.

Dukes has talent that Figueroa can only dream about, but he's done everything in his power to squander it without making an impact on anything but police blotters. That talent, though, gives him chance after chance while Figueroa has to go to Taiwan and back for a few weeks in the bigs. Like I said, life isn't fair.