At least Jerry Manuel won’t be criticized for his use of Francisco Rodriguez tonight.
The Mets tried to regain some control of their season, their team and their closer yesterday when they suspended Francisco Rodriguez for two games, but it will be hard for them to undo the damage of yet another mark against the organization after Rodriguez was arrested on Wednesday night for allegedly slugging his girlfriend’s father in the family room at Citi Field after a loss to Colorado.
“Everybody has family issues, but family issues are to be addressed at home, not in the family room,” Carlos Beltran said. “He knows he made a mistake. But . . . he’s our closer, he’s our guy. We have to support him, even though we don’t agree with what he did here.”
Rodriguez’s teammates were largely supportive yesterday, as he was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on charges of third-degree assault. He was released without bail and didn’t enter a plea. An order of protection was granted for his girlfriend and her father.
The next step will be to see how the Mets respond to Rodriguez’s issues, both when he’s gone and when he returns to the team. The two-game suspension will cost the closer $125,683.
“Ownership and the organization are very disappointed in Francisco’s inappropriate behavior and we take this matter very seriously,” COO Jeff Wilpon said in a statement, while GM Omar Minaya declined comment.
“We’ve had a lot of things go on here,” Manuel said before the Mets beat the Rockies 4-0. “We are men and things come our way. We still have a job to do to perform, which right now we’re not doing very well, but you still have to put forth your best effort.”
Several of those issues have involved the volatile closer, who earlier this season was involved in a dustup with bullpen coach Randy Niemann, who declined comment yesterday, as well as previous incidents with Tony Bernazard and then-Yankees reliever Brian Bruney.
“He’s not happy with what’s happened obviously,” said his agent, Paul Kinzer, adding that they won’t contest his placement on the restricted list. A league source said MLB is not planning any further discipline. “He’s not happy that it’s a distraction to the team. He understands the process. He knows things got carried away.”
The players association also has been involved and so far sees no reason for a grievance.
Rodriguez allegedly got upset initially with his girlfriend and that resulted in the altercation with her father.
“He’s a competitor and very fiery, very emotional,” David Wright said. “On a team, that’s a good thing, but obviously you don’t ever want it to get to the point it got to [Wednesday]. Guys make mistakes and you have to pay the consequences for those mistakes.”
Now, the entire team is paying for them, as its season continues to slip away.
“You don’t want to see that, especially at the ballpark,” said Jose Reyes, whose wife and daughter were in the family room during the incident. “It’s disappointing.”
Hitting coach Howard Johnson played for the 1986 Mets and has seen teams succeed despite off-field distractions.
“I think the players are in tune to the locker room pretty well and when adversity happens, they’ll band together,” Johnson said. “They had a business-like attitude in this game to get past the cloud of everything else going on.”
Wright said he thought that would continue.
“It’s got nothing to do with the baseball side,” Wright said. “What happens off the field has nothing do with scoring runs or getting out of jams.”
Unless you’re closer is being arraigned, of course.
Things have gotten so bad at Citi Field that Jeff Francoeur thought it might serve as inspiration.
“Maybe it’s a distraction we need,” Francoeur said. “Not to say it’s a good thing, but maybe at the end of the day, we can turn it into a positive.”
Leave it to the Mets to try to do that.
dan.martin@nypost.com