MET NOTES

PHILADELPHIA – After missing seven games with an ailing right knee, Mike Cameron made his return to the Mets last night.

“I’m still in the tender stage, man, but it’s good enough for me to go play baseball,” Cameron said.

As expected, Cameron, who had blood drained out of his knee on Monday, was batting leadoff instead of Jose Reyes. Willie Randolph had indicated last week that he would make the move when Cameron got healthy. How long it lasts, however, remains to be seen.

“Just see how he feels, see how he looks,” Randolph said.

*

Tomorrow, Randolph will make his first trip to Yankee Stadium as Mets manager when the Subway Series resumes.

“I haven’t really thought a lot about it,” Randolph said yesterday. “I don’t know if it’ll be emotional. It’s going to be nice. It’ll be different. It’ll be nice to go back.”

Added Randolph, “It’ll feel different, but like I said earlier, once the game starts, I’ve been in that dugout before, I’ve been in that clubhouse before as a visitor, so it won’t be totally foreign. I won’t make a wrong turn or nothing like that going into the tunnel or nothing like that. I’ll know where to go. But it’ll just be nice, when you walk through the clubhouse and through the ballpark, saying ‘hi’ to some of your old friends and stuff like that.”

Starting for the Mets tomorrow, of course, will be Pedro Martinez, who has had an interesting relationship with the Yankee Stadium fans. Asked how he expects the fans to be with Pedro, Randolph said, “They’ll probably start with that stupid ‘who’s your daddy?’ thing. But that’s easy. But outside of that, they’ll be calling him all kinds of names and everything. If we can get off quickly and he pitches well, they’ll quiet all that stuff down.”

The last time Martinez was in Yankee Stadium, though, it was Game 7 of the ALCS and the Red Sox enjoyed a great triumph, capping their unprecedented comeback. Because of that, Martinez was asked yesterday whether that meant he might have good memories going back into The Bronx this weekend for the first time since. “It’s a totally different team. I’m not playing for that team anymore,” Martinez said. “So what can I tell you? My memories are with another team. This year, it’s a brand new year. I’m coming in fresh. Nothing to take.”

*

Kazuo Matsui, on the DL with a deep bruise of his left knee, is heading to Port St. Lucie today.