Davidoff: Mets need a bad cop to deal with K-Rod

So the Mets are going for their third straight victory Saturday night, up by one run in the ninth, and the bullpen door opens up for . . . Francisco Rodriguez, fresh off his two-game suspension.

What kind of reception does he get? What kind of reception would you give him?

I say, should this precise scenario occur, that more fans prioritize winning over disapproving, and therefore the cheers outnumber the boos.

The biggest boos for K-Rod should've come from his own employers these last two days. Instead, what the Mets showed us these past two days was that they could really use a "bad cop."

"Unfortunately, it happened," Omar Minaya said Friday, before R.A. Dickey pitched a one-hitter to lead the Mets over the Phillies, 1-0, at Citi Field. "He feels bad about it, and of course, I told him that I feel bad that that happened. And right now, it's a situation that we just have to move forward now."

Minaya's not going to be your bad cop. For better (player recruitment) and worse (the Willie Randolph coup), he's a general manager who forges particularly close relationships with his players. And he's just a congenial guy.

Jeff Wilpon? The Mets' COO released a brief, effective statement Thursday, describing the team as "very disappointed" and K-Rod's behavior as "inappropriate." Yet neither Jeff nor Fred Wilpon is going to channel George Steinbrenner and both a) detail just how let down the organization feels and b) demand that Rodriguez apologize to both the team and the fans.

Jerry Manuel? No way. He's so out of touch that he was talking about using K-Rod on Thursday, while he was still being detained by police officers at the ballpark.

Which leaves . . . well, no one else.

We like to keep it real here. That means no calls for a longer suspension. Understand that Rodriguez, his agent, the Players Association and Major League Baseball all had to sign off on this penalty, and that a longer sentence simply wasn't going to fly. And in the greater picture of the Mets' woes, while we can call for the team to release Oliver Perez, there at least rests an understanding of the financial cost there.

Words, however, come cheap. Utilized effectively, they can pack quite a wallop.

Forget about the legal aspect of the K-Rod case. He is, after all, innocent until proven guilty. What puts this matter in play from a public-relations standpoint, what strikes the nerve of both fans and the other Mets players, is its locale.

Rodriguez's incident with his fiancée's father occurred at Citi Field, and it began in the team's family room, with wives and kids unwittingly serving as scenery. For that alone, the Mets can admonish K-Rod more harshly without intimating any technical guilt.

If this occurred on the 2010 Yankees, Brian Cashman would've torched the offending player. The Boss in his prime would've been all over, say, a 1980 Yankee who behaved this way. In 2000, Joe Torre would've balanced a heavy scolding with support. You need a bad cop to offer some flesh to the outraged fans and, in an instance like this, to let the other players know that such conduct won't be tolerated.

The Mets will consider some front-office restructuring following this season, with Minaya a candidate to switch titles and John Ricco a possibility to leap from assistant GM to GM. And with Manuel all but certainly a goner, perhaps Wally Backman can be that bad cop as the team's new manager.

They can work on the bad cop. The demand for accountability, however, needs to start Saturday, with a sincere apology from Rodriguez as he returns to work.