self-help: Floyd doing whatever he can

BY DAVID LENNON Newsday Staff Correspondent May 17, 2006 ST. LOUIS -- It's probably not a good sign when your slumping leftfielder is reading a self-help book before the game, but that's exactly what Cliff Floyd was doing yesterday on a clubhouse sofa inside the new Busch Stadium. Really, what could it hurt? Floyd had done everything else to that point. Extra batting practice. Watching video. And with no other options, manager Willie Randolph did the only thing left at his disposal over the weekend by benching Floyd for two games in Milwaukee. Obviously, Floyd was annoyed by the move, but there was not much he could say in his defense. He was hitting .195 at the time, and even on a Mets team with Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and David Wright in the heart of the order, that was unforgivable for a player of Floyd's caliber. But did the chance to clear his head actually help Floyd? There was no way of knowing until he stepped in the batter's box last night against the Cardinals, and he could only hope for the best in the hours leading up to the first pitch. Before the rain came last night, Floyd appeared to be making progress. In his first at-bat, Floyd ripped a line-drive double into the rightfield corner, but was stranded when Xavier Nady struck out to end the second inning. In the fourth, it took a nifty barehanded play by Suppan to rob him of an infield hit, but Floyd followed that with a two-out single in the sixth. "I'm going down swinging," Floyd said. After dropping two consecutive series in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, it did not seem like a good time to be paying a visit to the Cardinals, who entered last night 16-6 at shiny new Busch Stadium - the best home record in the majors. To top it off, last night's starter Jeff Suppan was 3-0 with a 1.55 ERA in five career starts against the Mets. With all the talk of infield shifts, pitch selection and just plain bad luck, Floyd's psyche has been a little scrambled lately. But there was no guarantee he would snap out of it, either, after a long weekend to step back from his problems. Before the game, Floyd studied the well-worn book, the pages highlighted in yellow marker, then sat with first-base coach Sandy Alomar at his locker. Alomar is the self-help guru on the Mets - sort of their Dr. Phil - but Floyd seems to need more than the power of positive thinking these days. Teams are defending Floyd perfectly with the exaggerated shift, plugging the middle and leaving the leftfield line open, and the frustration has been getting to him. As much as he tries to exploit the shift, the more Floyd's slump deepens, and he had yet to come up with a solution. "I never knew I hit the ball up the middle that much," Floyd said. "I haven't really been a guy my whole career who could hit the ball to leftfield. I wish I could. I wish I was better at it. You find yourself trying to do it and that's why I keep getting jammed." As for Randolph, he couldn't keep Floyd out of the lineup forever, even after Jose Valentin's big weekend filling in for him at Miller Park. The manager was hoping last night that Floyd's mental breather would make a difference. Nothing else had worked to that point. "Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't mean --," Randolph said yesterday afternoon. "If he goes 4-for-4, it would make me look smart. So get going, Cliff." Still, Randolph would not commit to Floyd beyond last night's game with lefthander Mark Mulder pitching for the Cardinals tonight. Floyd is 0-for-6 with two strikeouts against Mulder, but he's batting .095 (2-for-21) against lefthanders this season, and that could nudge Randolph to start Valentin instead. "We'll play it one day at a time," Randolph said.