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Following last night’s game, Willie Randolph was asked by a 
reporter if he was relieved to finally get a bounce or two in his favor against the Phillies, who always seem to get the bounce in their favor instead, to which he responded…
“They’ve been very fortunate, and we’ve given them opportunities – and that’s the way the game goes…You know, the games that we lost, the ones you guys are talking about, the eight or nine in a row, those games could have gone either way and at least four or five them we could have won. Fortunate bloops, little bouncers, rollers, an umpires call, all those things come in to play. So, you know, we’ve never felt there is any dominance against us. They won some games and that happens in baseball – where you’re gonna lose some games they should win and vice-a-versa…
“There’s nothing in our heads that they’re better than we are, that they’re in our heads or that kind of crap – that’s baseball…
“Tonight, they gave us some opportunities and when we played them last year we gave them a lot of opportunities and they took advantage of them. That’s the name of the game. Both teams are very evenly matched, and we respect each other, and you go out and play…
“But, the part about people thinking there’s some hex or jinx or some type of advantage is ridiculous.”
There is one department in which the Phillies are dominant, and that is in their team leadership.
We don’t have the type of firey personalities on our team that they do on theirs. Willie can say what he wants to, but he can’t argue that.
Don’t make the mistake of equating shouting with leadership, or shooting your mouth off to the media.
Lo Duca and Wagner both did both last September, and neither was a leader of the team.
Maybe Willie should have been helping the team not give the Phils all those opportunities last year though. Errors are something you can control, and they killed us in more than one game during that streak.
I think that the Mets could use a shouter or two on this team. I am not looking for the Mets to find someone to come in and take over the team or anything, but they could use a couple of forceful personalities.
When the Mets picked up Pagan, who has been great for us, the Phillies got Jenkins. Now, Jenkins is not an All-Star, (anymore?), but he is vet who’s been around the block for a while. Maybe a guy like that is more likely to light a fire under a team after a loss than a guy like Pagan is.
I don’t know…
Man the Phillies looked completely lifeless out there last night. Manuel should be fired. However, the Mets looked like they wanted it more and showed heart and determination.
Isn’t it amazing that the winning team shows heart and the losing team looks flat. I wonder how that works?
Oh cut it out with the sarcasm. Did you notice that Jimmy Rollins was not playing shortstop? The kid filling in had how many errors? The Mets had that game handed to them on a platter last night … the Phils were begging them to score runs. Give it a rest.
These kinds of responses humor me. It’s like you are getting upset that someone has a different opinion than you, yet you get so defensive when someone gets upset with your’s. He wasn’t aiming it at you, Michael…you can relax
It seems that you don’t like it when someone has an optimistic outlook of the team…very odd
Roach, when you come on this site a lot you get to know the posters. He’s being sarcastic, not aiming at me, aiming at people who’s opinion’s HE doesn’t agree with.
I’m asking him to deal with reality. The Mets didn’t look good last night … the Phillies looked bad.
Pelfrey was encouraging, I liked how he looked. I liked how the pen looked for the most part last night.
I didn’t like how the offense looked, especially not being able to score in the first couple of innings when Kendrik walked 6 guys and had the first error behind him. They had nothing to show for it.
It took the kid at short to totally fall on his face for them to finally push some runs across.
Maybe it’s a turning point and they’ll turn it on now. Things work strange like that in baseball. But to say the Mets “looked good” last night to try to prove a point just aint being real.
Sorry.
And Roach, it’s funny the only time you respond to me is when I say something “negative”. When I say positive things, which I do, you don’t talk to me.
So think about that the next time you feel compelled to call me out.
Noted. From my very 1st day at MetsBlog (4 years back), i’ve really only responded to opinions I disagree with…maybe it’s a personal problem, maybe not. I just don’t often see the point of going, “Rah rah YEAH!!!” (exaggerating, of course)
Don’t take it personal
Haha OK, nothing personal taken. Just making a point. Glad you saw my point as valid.
Great points! I totally agree with you both! Rah Rah YEAH!
Of course it is sarcastic. As a baseball fan I understand that bounces go one way or another. But I can tell you this as a coach, every player wants to win. I can’t stand when nobody posters on here question whether or not a player has heart because the team is losing and then say nothing about how much heart they show when they win.
It’s not about heart or grit, the most talented team that executes the best will win the game. The only reason that a team with the most tallent loses is because they did not execute as well as the other team. Give me a team with talent that goes out and does their job over a team with heart, grit and hustle every day.
In other words, relax and enjoy baseball. Stop basing everything on how we look when we lose and look at the entire picture. Do you think that all of a sudden the Tigers don’t want it and the O’s do? Or that the Tigers have had a lot of bad breaks and have not executed well and the O’s have had a lot of good breaks and have executed well?
Right, every player on the team wants to win like everyone of earth wants to be rich. However, the problem is like you said, execution. I think when people say they don’t think the Mets want to win, what they really mean is that they don’t execute like they want to win kind of like those people who WANTS to be rich but doesn’t work hard and relies on the lottery like they’re destined to win it one day.
Spot on, KFS!
Lots of help last night…
Perhaps if you look over to the LOB column of the boxscore or actually watched the game, the picture isn’t that rosy. 5 hits total, another error…
This team still have a long way to go before it is playing like they’re capable of. With that said, I’ll take the win any day. Here’s to hoping Wagner gets some game action tonight and the rain not pushing back Santana’s start on Saturday.
Speaking of team leadership, the one person who should have been stepping up in recent years is Delgado, slump or no slump. But it’s not in his personality. To some extent Pedro has leadership abilities but now he’s hurt.
That’s one area that Omar should pay a little more attention to — makeup and leadership qualities. Not that he should let that override talent, but just keep it in mind a little more.
Leadership is also somewhat hard to evaluate and quantify on a team. I mean, what happened to all the leadership on the Phillies last year when they got to the playoffs? Maybe leadership is only as good as your next day’s pitcher (and bullpen!). In which case, I still like the Mets chances this year in the division.
This team has at least three natural leaders:
Wright, Pedro, Santana.
Any more would create confusion and conflict.
Make that four… Schneider.
I disagree.
Outside of Pedro, what has any of the players you’ve mentioned done to prove that they are a natural leader?
Wright leads by example, no doubt, but I think that at this point he is too much like Piazza to be considered a “natural leader”.
We all love these guys, but that doesn’t make them “Natural Leaders”.
Given that Pedro is injured too often to lead, it appears to me that we are without any real “leader” at all.
Wright’s been standing up in the press all year saying leader-y things. He was the first met to call the new guys. He’s been critical when the team flags. He may not be FDR, but he sure looks like a leader to me.
As far as I know, FDR never flipped a buffet table.
he couldn’t get the leverage from his wheelchair
(ducking lightning bolt)
count it!
Wright is young and has had to be careful about speaking up. Pedro is hurt and has been largely absent of late. And Santana just got there.
So they could have used someone else the last few years — like Delgado. I think to some extent Valentin was a leader in ‘06, but he was hurt last year. There was a leadership void last year.
But as I said, leadership is only as good as your next day’s starter!
I agree with you 100%.
We need some more guys with fire.
There was a game in the Marlins series when Beltran was on 3rd and he shouted at Pagan who was at bat. Pagan then drove him in with a hit.
I want to see more of that from Beltran.
Agree about Beltran. He needs to step it up. I think what prevented him from doing so when he got here was being deferential to older veterans like Piazza and Delgado, having to adjust to NY, his relative youth, and his personality.
But now that PIazaa is gone, Delgado will be gone soon, Beltran is more comfortable in NY, and he has more seniority and experience with the team, I think he feels he can be more of a leader this year, and I think he’ll step it up gradually.
I like Beltran, with or without leadership.Any leadership from him will be an added bonus.
who was the great leader on the 2006 team that blew away the league? if the mets pitch that’s all the additional leadership they need.
i did like seeing reyes going to the mound to cam ollie the other night
*calm
Agreed on Beltran, he seems like one of those guys who take a while to totally come into their own. I think he’s at that point and he can really be the leader. I just hope he takes the bull by the horns and does it, because if he does, he’ll be a major force.
zen — in 2006, Pedro was there most of the year, and Valentin was a leader.
Hopefully now that Wright is older and Beltran is more comfortable and settled in with the Mets, they will step it up this year to provide leadership along with Santana and Pedro when he gets back. Santana’s rep and personality is such that I think he can provide leadership right away.
fair enough. i’m not against having better leadership and there is clearly no keith hernandez on this team. just think it’s irrelevant unless the pitching struggles
I don’t think you necessarily need a Mex. But I think it’s ideal to have at least a few players who can sometimes energize or inspire their teammates in some way to elevate their performance.
Cliff Floyd and Paul LoDuca were primary leaders in 2006. LoDuca was essentially the voice of the team, and Floyd clearly held court in the clubhouse.
This game to me felt like an exorcism of sorts. Sure, Willie says there’s no “hex” or whatever — obviously — but to the extent that any guy on our team was feeling like “damn, these guys get to me…” they are out of it now. I don’t know about you guys, but I found myself actually exhaling unconsciously and hugely in that 3rd inning after feeling like September 07 with all the LOB in the 1st and 2nd.
And yeah, do it again.
With Elduque down again and who knows what from Pedro, can we finally agree we need a 4/5 starter to keep our advantage. I think Pelfrey will be ok, but we would be foolish to expect anything out of Pedro or Elduque this year.
We can always get Jose Lima! Lima Time WOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, and he can wear 17 again, just to annoy Keith.
don’t we have claudio “not jason” vargas practically signed?
I like that…can that be his official name here?
i’m a bit afraid that we jinx it and he becomes claudio “just as bad as jason” vargas.
I think Willie’s comments were some of the best he’s made. The fact that the Phillies sh*t the bed was actually a great reminder that most of these Philly wins have been on Mets implosion – remember the Sunday game with all those walks or errors, following a game in which Beltran blew a huge play (Rollins triple), and there was the Marlan Anderson slide …
The key point – and I love the language used – no f*ing way they’re in our head; we’re better than them!
The thing with WIllie……he just isn’t believable.