BRONX, NY – With the rains soaking the field at Yankee Stadium, the only competition for the Mets on Friday evening came in the form of a chess match between John Maine and Mike Pelfrey.

The split of those two games show how good the two pitchers are at playing the timeless game. Ye,t the 20-19 record the Mets displayed this season is a testament of the mediocrity the team has displayed on the field.

So with batting practice canceled, manager Willie Randolph decided to use the time call a team meeting in order to clear the air and maybe get the team back on track. It makes sense, especially after closer Billy Wagner seemed to call out his teammates for leaving early and not facing the media after Thursday’s 1-0 loss to the Nationals.

No one knows if the meeting will put the Mets back on track, but one thing’s for certain, this Met team is suffering from a malaise which goes beyond the collapse of 2007. The winning fire seems to be gone and outside of a few players, the Amazins’ seem to be a team just playing for a paycheck.

Now Randolph denied that vehemently during his pre-game press conference, which was delayed for almost an hour due to the team meeting, but the facts are there. There are too many mental mistakes on the field, the base running is atrocious and the bullpen is overworked and no one, outside of Wagner, has a defined role.

This all goes on the head of the manager. After last year’s collapse, general manager Omar Minaya was right to defend Randolph and give him another chance to clean up the mess of 2007. But now it may be time to make a change. If the Mets don’t respond to the meeting where both Carlos Delgado and Wagner spoke up, then the intelligent manager has lost the clubhouse and a new voice is needed, be it Jerry Manuel, Lee Mazzilli or someone else.

The fans seem to have made their decision already with the manager getting booed on both Wednesday and Thursday, because they have grown tired of the sloppy Mets.

Randolph may not have Minaya in his corner anymore either. With the general manager’s contract up, he may be looking to save his own skin, rather than using his clout to keep his manager.

Also, the Wilpons also may be losing patience. Sure, they have good ticket sales this season, but if the Mets go into the tank again, they may have problems selling out Citi Field, a stadium designed for capacity crowds, and SportsNet NY will suffer in the ratings as well.

So this Subway Series is more important than ever for the Mets. If the team mails in the final two games this weekend, team management may take the off day Monday to evaluate their options.

Then it just may be checkmate on the Randolph era at Shea.

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