So 6-4 in the Mediocre League was good enough to pick up a game on three of the four teams in front of the Mets — Houston, Washington and Florida — and to keep pace with the Phillies.

What I’m saying is that it doesn’t take a lot to climb the standings in the NL. Just .600 ball the rest of the way in could wrap up that last playoff spot. And the Mets are as capable as any of the teams hunting the wild card of doing that.

The safe call in the race is to give it to the Astros, who, with Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemens, have the best pitching, their team ERA a nifty 3.58. The Mets are fourth among the five wild card contenders with a 3.92 ERA.

If pitching alone wins championships, that would be the end of it. But as the Astros learn all too frequently, a team has to score a few runs, too.

And here’s the surprise in the Mets season. When it began, they had as much trouble scoring runs as President Bush has appointing judges. But the offense that wasn’t when the season began has become the second most productive among the five principal wild card contenders. At 4.56 runs per game, the Mets are just a 10th of a run behind the Phillies.

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And when you put the Mets' run production together with their pitching, they have the best differential between team ERA and runs per game of any of their competitors. It’s a slim margin — Florida was just a 100th of a run behind as of Wednesday morning — but the differential between what you score and what you give up is critical. It’s why Washington, which scores just a quarter of a run a game more than it gives up, is going to continue to fall in the standings. It’s why the Mets have a chance.

They don’t have any great hitters. But third baseman David Wright is developing into the superior hitter the Mets felt he would become, Cliff Floyd provides some power, and Jose Reyes at the top of the lineup has 41 stolen bases. If Beltran, who has just 59 RBI so far, can get hot, the Mets can be dangerous.

It may not yet be time to believe, but for Mets fans, it’s time to hope.

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