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It's foolish to panic over the slow start to the 2008 season. That means little and probably nothing. But Randolph deserves scrutiny for game management and roster utilization and his ability to motivate and relate to his players.

About 45 percent of over 3,000 fans responding to a poll on MetsBlog.com disapprove of the job he's doing as manager. And it's not like the team is 0-7 this year. While that's still an approval rating that would be the envy of many politicians, including the current president, it's a clear sign of discontent.

The Mets made him sweat out a return last fall. He didn't get an extension on the two years remaining on his contract and Minaya admitted he thought at length about whether "moving forward, should Willie Randolph be the manager."

So Randolph, a man so nondescript as a Yankee that George Steinbrenner reportedly didn't even acknowledge him when they passed in the hallways during his long tenure as coach, returned to the field. But not before the Mets cleared out Lastings Milledge and neutered Jose Reyes, presumably as a response to continued public criticism by Randolph.

Randolph famously chastised Milledge publicly for high-fiving fans when running back out to the field after his first homer. And Randolph blamed the choreographed celebration between Reyes and Milledge on the final Saturday of the season for "firing up" the Marlins in the finale. It couldn't have been Tom Glavine's fault for not being able to get out of the first inning. Glavine's a veteran "pro," who comports himself just like Randolph did as a player.

"He was quiet. Very quiet," says former Yankee catcher Fran Healy of Randolph, the player.

Coaches and managers who had success as players often fail in the supervisory role because they expect their players to perform like they did. But people are different. Many different personalities coexisted on those great Yankee teams he was a part of. But Randolph seems only to value the corporate, briefcase professionalism that defined him.

Milledge celebrated his 23rd birthday last week for the Nationals, for whom he entered Thursday's action hitting .316. The new, lobotomized Reyes is hardly improved, and he's playing a joyless brand of baseball. The celebrations are gone, for sure. And there's also very little for him to celebrate. I doubt the two are unrelated.

No more of those popular Profesor Reyes skits where he taught Spanish to the fans via the Shea scoreboard. "I want to be more focused." How sad, as the smiling Reyes once lit up a lot more than the scoreboard. He's cut down his swing and, after drilling a ball off the center field wall in Port St. Lucie, said, apologetically, "I don't know how I hit it that hard," he said. "I just wanted to hit it the other way and use my speed." All part of the concerted effort, presumably orchestrated by Randolph, to correct Reyes' September slump.

Managers like Randolph who profess to have talking guts will never understand random variance. But a former player like Randolph should know that players need selective memories to thrive in the heat of competition that's at a level unimaginable to us fans. Focus on your successes, which in Reyes' case are considerable, and erase all failure from your brain.

If Randolph wants to find a reason for Reyes' poor second half, maybe he can look back to his very public benching for not running out a ground ball. You can make a reasonable case that triggered his slump. Just because Gary Cohen considers failing to run out grounders and popups high treason doesn't really make it a crime. There's not a player around who isn't guilty of this. Why selectively enforce it in such a public way?

This pattern of criticizing players is continuing, as Randolph tossed Oliver Perez under the bus after the Mets lost their home opener on Tuesday.

"He got his pitch count up, he was a little erratic," Willie Randolph said. "All our starters are going to have to give us a little more length than that. I just thought he labored most of the day off and on." Perez allowed no runs and six baserunners in nearly six innings (94 pitches) against what could be the best hitting team in the league.

Why can't Willie be as quiet as a manager as he was as a player and stop this type of behavior? He's clearly not a motivator. Better he uses his stoicism to project strength and take responsibility for his team failures even when they're not remotely his fault.

Here's a suggestion: if Billy Wagner gets blasted in his next save opportunity, blame yourself for allowing him to pitch one inning through the first seven games. You could have squeezed a couple out of him in the loss at Florida, but it was a tie game on the road, I know.

Mets fans have to accept that Randolph manages completely by the numbers. This means that if the Mets come back from a seven-run deficit to tie a game in the ninth inning, Wagner does not pitch the bottom of the ninth. It doesn't matter if there are three games left with the division tied and with Jorge Sosa the only other pitcher left to face some heavy-hitting lefties. No exceptions!

Aaron Heilman? Willie's "eighth-inning man." Who cares if Scott Schoeneweis is out there in the seventh inning against some righty hitters who pound him? You can't possibly squeeze more than two innings out of Heilman and Wagner (not matter how well rested) because that's not in the script.

And it's not like Willie's script is Godfather II. It's more like Porky's II.

Pedro Feliciano wasn't available on Tuesday. But I suspect that Schoeneweis has supplanted him as the primary lefty in the pen who is allowed to pitch to righties. Pedro II is a better pitcher than Schoeneeweis against both lefties and righties. But Willie must find that out the hard way after putting too much stock in the latter's randomly good September. For his career, Schoeneweis has a 5.02 ERA and his last three years as a reliever he's 4.88, 5.03 and 5.40. Righties have a .830 career OPS versus him, that's about 100 points higher than what Feliciano has allowed versus righties.