Woeful road trip tightens NL East race; Giambi update

	Carlos Beltran failed to reel in a home run by Wilson Betemit in the Mets' 9-1 loss to the Dodgers on Wednesday. AP

Also in this column:
• Giambi needs to play ball
• Verlander's unique achievement
• White Sox on the block
• More news and notes

LOS ANGELES -- Willie Randolph's tough New Yorker came flowing out as soon as the question was posed. "Do I look concerned?" Randolph responded to that very query.

No, frankly, he didn't look very concerned when the question was asked, which was before the Mets had completed their simultaneous trip to paradise (Los Angeles) and hell with yet another defeat, this one a debacle. And he still didn't look all that worried hours later, after their latest horror, a 9-1 loss that included a dropped throw at second by Jose Reyes and a lot of other shenanigans you don't expect to see from the NL East favorite.

But Randolph had to be a little depressed in the knowledge that, right now, there is almost no team in baseball playing worse than the ultra-talented Mets. Not the Royals, not the D-Rays, not the Nats. Maybe the Rangers are worse, but that's about it.

"No one likes to get slapped around, but no one's immune to that," Randolph said before the latest defeat.

"Good teams are off here and there," he said after the game.

The message was a nice and mature one from a man who's been through the baseball wars and back, who's seen everything and then some. But not everyone in the Mets' clubhouse wants to hear that message. "You can say everyone goes through it," one Met said, "but we need to do something about it."

Another Met asserted, "We didn't run balls out. We didn't show up today."

And Billy Wagner said, "I'm sure Omar [Minaya] didn't put this team together to expect this type of play. I'm sure [owner] Fred Wilpon didn't shell out all that money for us to go play like this."

The Mets boarded their cross-country flight back to New York wondering what hit them. The Dodgers, the very team they swept out of the playoffs last October, swept them back this week, and badly. The Mets made it six straight games on their trip in which they'd forged a lead, and five straight games that they'd lost, a skid that shrunk their lead in the NL East to two games over the Braves. It gave them quite a bit to consider as they prepared for another Subway Series showdown on Friday against the surging Yankees, winners of eight straight.

Whatever the Yankees do, it will be tough to duplicate the performance of the Dodgers, who simply crushed the Mets. The Dodgers' highlight was three homers on consecutive pitches by their seven, eight and nine hitters on Tuesday, the final one coming off the bat of Hong-Chih Kuo, a no-doubt drive that inspired Kuo to execute a major-league flip of the bat, "They played outstanding," Wagner said, "and we made them look better with our sloppy play and lackadaisical effort."

Wagner also asserted, "You've got to want it."

That's tough talk. But it's the truth.