Straight shooting and honest answers, that’s what we are getting from Jerry Manuel so far. After one week in the driver’s seat, there seems to be the feeling that things are bit more normal than usual for the Mets. Since taking over the club, the Mets have won 3 and lost 2 for Manuel. The important thing, there were no give aways. Even in Saturday night’s Pedro meltdown, the Mets still played a crisp fundamentally sound game.

Tonight, Manuel begins his first home stand as manager. And while the New York Post may be inciting controversy, anyone who took the time to read Jerry’s comments would realize he was not bashing Mets fans. His analogy to fertilizer was about growing team unity and that appears to be a major focus for the former White Sox manager.

From making his pitcher wait on the mound for the reliever after a pitching change to his small group meetings in the clubhouse, Manuel is trying to make this team come together. And there is no question the Mets are more relaxed and are simply just playing better. The Mets have now won 3 consecutive series winning 6 of 9 games. They are back at the .500 mark and are just 3.5 games behind a slumping Phillies team. But make no mistake that these Mets have a long way to go. A winning streak of 6 or 7 games would be a nice start. That won’t be easy facing a dominant pitcher tonight against Seattle and with 4 games against the rebounding Yankees this weekend. However, it would be nice to see the Mets win 15 out of 20 or something close to that. Then we might truly begin to think the Mets have turned the corner.

While no one publicly is blaming Willie Randolph, you get the sense that something dysfunctional was going on in the clubhouse. Whether it was Willie’s thin skin or Tony Bernazard’s meddling, the level of distraction had to have been taking its toll on the Mets continued efforts to separate themselves from last year’s meltdown. At least now the Mets cannot use the distraction of Willie’s future as an excuse. If they revert back to their lackadaisical ways then they can only blame themselves.

Hopefully Ryan Church will be back for the Yankee series. He is slated to play a couple of games with the Brooklyn Cyclones this week before the Mets determine if he is well enough to be activated. That would be a big lift to the club.

With the conclusion of the road trip, the Mets must be grateful that the furthest west they travel will be St. Louis and Houston. They are done with the west cost for this season. The Mets California record is 5-8. The four game sweep at the hands of the Padres really did the Mets in and likely sealed Randolph’s fate. If you factor in games at Arizona and Colorado, the Mets record west of the Mississippi is 10-12. Considering the turmoil and injuries, I guess things could have been a hell of a lot worse.

After 74 games, the Mets remains about as .500 as you can get. Their overall record is 37-37. At night the Mets are 23-23 and during the day they are 14-14. The Mets home record is 20-14 and on the road they are 17-23. The Mets like lefties having played to a 15-9 record while struggling with right handers at 22-28. For June the Mets are 10-10. They are 14-9 in series play with 2 splits. The Mets favorite day of the week to play is Wednesday. On Wednesday, the Mets are 9-3.