Tony DeMarco

With the biggest divisional lead in baseball and little else to worry about, the New York Mets almost have to create causes for concern.

Like, perhaps, maybe, the psyche of closer Billy Wagner, who blew his fourth opportunity in 18 tries, costing the Mets a potential win against the Cincinnati Reds last week. Or maybe suffering their first sweep of the season — to Boston this week.

No, more than the usual glitches that occur in even the best of seasons, what we have here is the perfect storm of developments that has turned an 83-game winner a year ago into arguably the majors’ best team about 10 days away from the halfway point of the season:

There are emerging All-Stars on the left side of the infield in David Wright and Jose Reyes — the former whose numbers have made him an MVP candidate in everyone’s eyes but his own, the latter who leads the league in runs scored, stolen bases and triples. And they’re both only 23.

Protected by Carlos Delgado’s 20-homer bat in the cleanup spot behind him, Carlos Beltran has turned 2005 into an aberration. He is on pace for 43 homers, 126 RBI and 27 steals, and is fourth in the league in slugging percentage.

Tom Glavine leads the league with 10 wins and is only 15 away from 300, Pedro Martinez is on top of the NL in strikeouts, and the staff is first in the league in ERA.

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The signings of Delgado and Wagner grabbed the off-season headlines, but general manager Omar Minaya’s other moves have been every bit as vital. Minaya traded for Duaner Sanchez and signed Chad Bradford and Darren Oliver to help Aaron Heilman set up Wagner. And he remade the bench by adding Julio Franco and Endy Chavez to holdovers Ramon Castro and Chris Woodward. The latest move was eliminating the distraction of the disappointing Kaz Matsui, giving him a new start in Colorado and getting back a versatile spare part in Eli Marrero.

A 9-1 trip through Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Arizona has left the rest of the NL East behind, leaving Randolph — and who better, with his six World Series rings, the last four won with the Yankees — to remind everybody that’s it’s June, not October by saying, “It’s a nice little run, but it’s nothing.’’

Just don’t tell that to the rest of the NL East. You know about the Atlanta Braves’ perplexing and surprising struggles including nine losses in 10 games, and the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals each lost eight of 10 through Thursday. Only the Florida Marlins have been winning, but they were so far back to begin with that they still are nowhere close even after nine victories in 10 games.

Instead, the Mets already are being compared to the ghosts of their successful past. Reyes and Wright are the current National League co-players of the week — one week after Carlos Beltran won the same honor. The last time the Mets had back-to-back winners came in 2000 — not coincidentally the last time they advanced to the World Series.

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The Mets also are looking at four potential All-Star starters in Wright, Reyes, Beltran and Paul Lo Duca. The only other time that happened in franchise history was in their last World Series title season, 1986. Between Glavine, Martinez and Delgado, the Mets should get at least one more All-Star, and the last time they had five was — you guessed it, 1986. Considering home-field advantage in the World Series will be at stake on July 11^th in Pittsburgh, all those Mets All-Stars will have every reason to treat the game as more than an exhibition.

With Cliff Floyd expected to come off the disabled list soon, top prospect Lastings Milledge might have to return to the minors because there won’t be enough at-bats for him. Another good problem for the Mets to have.