Davidoff: Having to save face is old story for Mets

Camp Day here at Citi Field Thursday. Cute kids all over. The Mets outlasted both overcast skies and the Rockies, their beleaguered ace pitched an absolute gem and everyone went home happy with the 4-0 victory.

But anything short of a Johan Santana no-hitter (the Rockies managed four hits) wasn't going to wipe away the stench of Francisco Rodriguez's saga.

As the Mets captured this rubber game, Queens Criminal Court Judge Mary O'Donoghue forbade the Mets closer from seeing his fiancee, Daian Peña, or her father, Carlos Peña. This after K-Rod spent Wednesday night detained at Citi Field, arrested and charged with third-degree assault for his family-room attack on Carlos Peña.

At 57-57, the Mets are a .500 team once more. Worse than most clubs, yet better than plenty. They're trying to post their fifth winning record in six seasons. Once more, however, they carry the perception of being baseball's Team Turmoil.

For the Mets, perception always seems to clobber reality. Your closer is attacking his supposed loved ones on company grounds, in front of teammates' family members? That's a pretty difficult image to overcome.

It's a curse, it appears sometimes, born of their modest beginnings. Using their maiden voyage of 1962 to set the record for most losses (120) in a season, with Casey Stengel serving as much as entertainer as skipper, made them lovably inept. As ticket prices and expectations rose, the "lovably" evolved to "scornfully." So when the Mets began this season exceeding expectations, only to fall back to reality, the anger level went off the charts.

The Mets conducted themselves about as well as they could have Thursday. They suspended K-Rod for two days without pay, and COO Jeff Wilpon issued a statement critical of the closer. They executed that penalty knowing that he wouldn't challenge it.

Now, they need to make sure that he gets some psychological help; one person in the loop said that such treatment was "possible." They must do a better job of keeping K-Rod in line.

As an organization, they need to streamline both their thinking and their communications so that Jerry Manuel isn't saying, about an hour before first pitch, that he would have no reservations about using K-Rod - as the team is in the process of finalizing its suspension of him.

Manuel won't be back next year, barring a miraculous playoff run, and don't read too much into Fred Wilpon's comments last week about Omar Minaya's future. Minaya will work for his guaranteed Mets salary in 2011, yet it won't necessarily be as general manager.

Look for another major decision-maker to come in from the outside, to work alongside Minaya, assistant GM John Ricco (who could become GM) and the other baseball operations people. To give the team another perspective. It couldn't hurt.

Yes, their closer has serious problems, but the Mets shouldn't weep out of self-pity when they look in the mirror.

If Ike Davis, Jon Niese, Bobby Parnell and Ruben Tejada don't look like future superstars, then they're at least potentially serviceable big-league players. The farm system is improving. Santana (fighting a civil suit accusing him of rape), David Wright and Jose Reyes have enjoyed bounce-back seasons, and where in the world did R.A. Dickey come from? If the Mets' future isn't bright, it looks better. If their present isn't thrilling, it's not as awful as perceived.

Maybe someday, the Mets will kick this bug and be regarded primarily as a baseball team rather than a punch line, get the most out of wins like Thursday's.

Right now, though? They just have to figure out who's closing Friday night against the Phillies.