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Even on a night when the Mets won, manager Willie Randolph lost.

Randolph made two more decisions Wednesday night that drew scrutiny from Mets management, according to major-league sources.

The decision on whether to fire Randolph rests with general manager Omar Minaya, and his status has become almost day-to-day, sources say.

The Mets chose to retain Randolph during a meeting on May 26 in which he met with Minaya, owner Fred Wilpon and his son, Jeff, the team's chief operating officer.

Since then, the team is 8-8, and it had lost five straight games before defeating the Diamondbacks 5-3 on Carlos Beltran's two-run walk-off homer in the 13th inning Wednesday night.

The Mets had taken a 3-0 lead into the ninth, but the Diamondbacks tied the score on a three-run homer by Mark Reynolds off closer Billy Wagner on a 3-2 count with two outs.

For Randolph, that was the fateful inning.

First, he allowed second-year right-hander Mike Pelfrey to start the ninth after Pelfrey had thrown 110 pitches.

Then, after a leadoff single by Stephen Drew, Randolph summoned Wagner, even though statistics suggest that Wagner is far better starting an inning than when summoned in the middle.

Since the start of 2007, Wagner has entered games 84 times at the start of an inning, but only seven times in the middle.

He is 44-for-50 in save opportunities when starting an inning, according to STATS, Inc. His ERA in those situations is 2.05 ERA, and he has allowed six homers in 88 innings.

When entering in the middle of an inning, Wagner is 3-for-6 in save chances. His ERA is 7.11, and he has allowed three homers in 6 1/3 innings.

Those statistics do not excuse Wagner for allowing the three-run homer by Reynolds. But Randolph's choice of Wagner in the middle of an inning — combined with his decision to start Pelfrey in the ninth — left him open to second-guessing.

According to the New York Daily News, Randolph apparently was prepared to pull Pelfrey for a pinch-hitter in the eighth, but the pitcher talked him out of it.

"I started to go up there to hit, and they told me I was done," Pelfrey said. "I was kind of mad at the time because I wanted to stay in the game and I wanted to keep pitching. He came up to me and said, 'You want this?' And I was like, 'Yeah, I want it.'"

Pelfrey had not pitched into the ninth in any of his 28 previous career starts, and had worked at least seven innings only three times. Randolph could have lifted him after the eighth, or even the seventh, and Pelfrey still would have had reason to be happy with his outing.

Instead, Pelfrey allowed the leadoff single to Drew, and the inning crumbled. The Mets rebounded, but Randolph remains an issue, as does management's indecisiveness on his status.

"The players have the look of, 'Hurry up, let's get this over with. If you're going to fire him, fire him,'" says one rival scout who saw the Mets this week.

"There's not the desire to save the guy's job. They realize the guy is going to go. It's like, 'Hurry up, let's turn the page."