Mike Celizic

They’re almost New York’s forgotten team, the one that plays out by the airport in Flushing, Queens and has a hard time filling its creaky stadium, the one that shows up on the national sports radar only when something bad happens to it.

But for all their lack of charisma, the Mets are once again living up to the sobriquet Casey Stengel laid on them — amazin’.

It’s not as if their fans are running around repeating, “You gotta believe” — not real loudly anyway. The team still hasn’t bumped into one of those streaks in which everything goes its way and it wins games in miraculous manners. Even after a win against the Pirates — or “Pahrts,” as they say in Pittsburgh, where Ahrn City is still the beer of choice — the Mets Wednesday morning were still just two games over the measure of mediocrity that is .500 ball.

But the fans are starting to think about believing. The surest sign of that was a burst of Mets talk on the talk radio stations over the weekend, when rookie manager Willie Randolph, one of the Big Apple’s most beloved sports figures over the past 30 years, was dragged over the coals for pinch-hitting Kaz Matsui, whose next memorable hit will be his first, in a game against the Padres. The Mets lost the game, which isn’t news. But only fans who think they have something to win would bother to climb on Randolph for such a decision.

And so, despite the win-one, lose-one rhythm of their season and the usual assortment of calamities that usually befalls them — the sickening head-on collision last week of outfielders Mike Cameron and Carlos Beltran will be replayed for years — the Mets are in the playoff hunt.

After Tuesday night’s win, combined with a Houston loss to the Bad News Cubbie Bears, the Mets found themselves just 3.5 games out of the National League wild card. And, yes, there are a passel of teams ahead of them, including the entire NL East, but they have a genuine chance.

The cruel — and, unfortunately, accurate — thing to say would be that the fact the Mets are still in the hunt is less a tribute to them and more a condemnation of the National League, which has one very good team, the Cards, one decent team, the Braves, and a whole lot of teams that count one victory as a winning streak.

The Mets themselves started the season with five straight losses, followed that up with six straight wins, and ever since haven’t won or lost more than four straight. After Tuesday night, they were 6-4 in their last 10 games, which doesn’t sound like a particularly hot streak until you notice that no team in the National League has done better over the same period. Only five others — St. Louis, Philly, L.A., San Diego and Cincinnati — have done as well.

MORE FROM BASEBALL

Baseball Section Front

Pitching makes Red Sox team to beat Eyes on AL East, NL West as second half starts MLB blog: Mauer gets nod over Bartlett as MVP MLB blog: Who's NL MVP so far? Pujols ... by far MLB blog: Mets fans shouldn't care about Pedro MLB blog: Bay blogs about ‘weird’ interaction with Ichiro AL All-Stars make their best pitch yet   Images: See the HR Derby, All-Star rosters Special feature: Top baseball All-Star moments More subpoenas issued in Clemens case Baseball Section Front   Add Baseball headlines to your news reader: