Big ups Billy Wagner! It’s not everyday that a ballplayer calls out a teammate for not giving maximum effort but that’s precisely what the Mets’ veteran lefty closer did the other day calling out an ineffective Oliver Perez for not dialing it up a notch.

Instead, the talented southpaw enigma showed his dreadful side losing the plate to the tune of five walks and seven runs (2 ER) in a disastrous second inning against the lowly Pirates. His former club got the better of him taking advantage of porous Met defense turning three errors and one big mental lapse by Jose Reyes to destroy New York 13-1. Prior to the blowout defeat at Shea before another testy crowd (who could blame them), the Amazin’s had won three in a row including the last two from a banged up Atlanta team over the weekend.

Finally, things seemed to be on the way up for Willie Randolph’s ballclub. Not so fast. Instead of making it a two-game sweep of the Pirates and four straight before a challenging West coast swing with stops at major league leader Arizona and the suddenly hot Joe Torre Dodgers (six straight wins), the Mets played sloppy ball in the field and hardly were competitive at the plate against no-name Tom Gorzelanny managing only one hit and zero runs despite five bases on balls in the first five frames.

Where’s Bob Uecker’s Harry Doyle Major League character when you need him?

“There was no get-up-and-go,” a fired up Wagner told reporters after the humiliation. “That can’t happen.”

To say he took Perez and a few lazy teammates to the woodshed would be an understatement. Billy didn’t mince words even indicating that his team was lucky to finish April two over .500 (14-12).

“It might be good if we worked on a little bit of everything,” one of the team’s most consistent performers noted. “Bullpen’s been shoddy. Starting pitching, we’ve had our ups and downs. Hitting comes and goes.”

The talkative Wagner has always been willing to put himself out there challenging teammates to play better. In the third year of a four-year $43 million contract, the 36 year-old who has six saves and 12 K’s in 12 innings while permitting just three hits has every right to be upset. He came here to win a World Series. Despite winning their division two years earlier, they haven’t been to one yet losing in gut wrenching fashion to the Cardinals and then collapsing last September.

With the key acquisition of ace Johan Santana, the Mets were supposed to get a tremendous lift and make the negativity of last year go away. However, that’s not what’s happened so far which is why Wagner sounded the justified alarm that his team needs to be better.

You could start with Reyes being Reyes on a daily basis and Carlos Beltran remembering that he was given over $100 million three years ago to be a big run producer. Not just a streaky player who goes from hot to ice cold making Met fans see the recurring image of the bat on the shoulder with Adam Wainwright and the Cards celebrating on their field.

As for Wagner target Perez, he’s only gone six once in his first six outings. Oh btw…that came in a 13-0 Apr.2 rout at Florida a month ago. It’s awfully hard to accumulate innings when you walk nearly as many batters as you strikeout. Twenty one walks in 29 IP just won’t get it done. Especially with a thin pen which Randolph has already overused.

Outside of Wagner, Pedro Feliciano and the coming along Duaner Sanchez whose role should magnify, who else can Met supporters trust out of that pig pen?

Fairly simple reply.

Wagner even admitted on The Michael Kay show during his weekly segment yesterday that he’s not the most liked teammate. No surprise there since many players today hate when a brutally honest and caring ‘mate tosses high heaters instead of soft lobs to the press if their team isn’t playing to expectation.

Today’s players are too pampered. These Mets feel they’ve accomplished something already when that’s far from the case. It’s about winning championships.

That Wagner spoke up shows his heart’s in the right place. He knows it should be much better. It’s not like anyone’s running away with the NL East. The Phils are still without MVP Jimmy Rollins and don’t have much pitching to speak of. Florida has dropped three straight and aren’t very deep pitching-wise either. The Braves are banged up and have dropped four in a row. Though they’re playing better, the Nats are still the Nats.

On paper, the Mets should have enough to take the division. Maybe that’s the problem. Paper doesn’t win you anything. A crisper brand of baseball will.

The same applies for what’s gone on across town in the Bronx. We’ll get to that story another day.

For now, we admire Billy The Kid and wish there were more players like him in today’s game. He clearly gets IT!

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