Daily News from New York, New York • 46

-T 1 mi 5 -v3 cm pl! -n i in! i ft IE Ml Fox's defense John Harper, Page 56 LJ lJ Qj JWL SB 1 -1 this, "the time we have left, it's still not out of the question," he said. The Mets front office delivered this small message the other day when it traded a reliable chunk of the bullpen Turk Wendell and Dennis Cook to the Phillies. It's not what teams do if they think they can put something together over the last part of the season. "We don't think Steve (Phillips, the GM) was waving a white flag" with the trades, Appier said. "If we did, that would (tick) us off a lot." The white flag business, "I read that somewhere.

I don't believe it," the pitcher said. The Mets scored 16 runs in these last three wins. For them, that's an explosion. It's been seven weeks since they put together that many runs in three consecutive games. If the hitters can keep that up.

if the pitchers stay competitive. and if I keep The Mets aren't working today. They don't have to put on the uniform, can't leave a bunch of people on base and won't have to pretend they're still in it. It that wonderful it is no longer in Queens. They beat the Phils, the phormerly phirst-place Phils, 6-5, yesterday, for their third win in a row, their fourth in five games.

Before this latest streak, they had lost four out of five. Forget that. The Mets have. They are now eight games under .500. It's the same place they were two weeks ago.

The same hole they were in two months ago. This is known, in clubhouses and garages everywhere, as the spinning of the wheels. But forget that. The Mets have. "The season only means something when it's over," Bobby Valentine said after yesterdays game.

writing things like that, trade me, too. Piazza has a much healthier take on what might be available to the Mets. "It's definitely not gonna be easy," he said, and that was as far as he would go on that It not over in July. Valentine has to make those kind of speeches. He isn't going to concede.

He hasn't had a losing season in his four years here. Just before the start of every game at Shea Stadium, when the home team leaves VIC ziegel A rough stretch ot road. Thinking about contending, he said, "that's secondary. We need to have a good trip and take it from there. need to have a good August.

You can't say if we win 19 out of our next 20. You can't do that." Piazza, the way he did for so much of last season, is carrying the Mets. He poked two homers Friday and was 3-for-5 yesterday, driving in three "We're keeping things simple now," he said. "We're playing the game. We're playing hard.

Guys are laughing. Guys are having fun. You see guys like Desi (Relaford) bearing down and it inspires you." elaford singled in the first and came home on Piazza's double. Pi-lltaazza's single in the fifth followed another Relaford single but that inning ended when Joe McEwing was thrown out at home. The seventh, Piazza came up with two on, one out, and slapped a double-play grounder.

But Relaford tripped up the shortstop. Piazza made it to first and the other runner came home. "That's a great effort by Desi," the catcher said. "That's a huge run. My next at-bat it made me confident, rather than depressed." That was the 380-foot at-bat that made the Mets winners.

And left them thinking they weren't full of, you know, it. E-mail: vziegeleditnydailynews.com the dugout, the public address announcer reminds the crowd, "Here they are, the National League champions." You will hear it the only it the Mets can count on for two more months. Yesterday's game was a beauty. The same kind of late-inning success the Mets specialized in on the way to October. Last year, I told Jay Payton, you seemed to win so many of these games.

"Every time," he said. This time, the Mets took a one-run lead in the seventh, fell behind in the eighth, went back in front on Tsuyoshi Sinjo's two-run homer, and let the Phils tie it in the ninth. Mike Piazza provided the winner with his no-doubt-about-it home run in the bottom of the ninth. The Mets were walk-off winners for the second day in a row. The news was nothing but good.

Too bad it didn't matter. "Nobody in this clubhouse is quitting," John Franco said. He gave up the two-run homer that almost buried the Mets. "We know our chances aren't good," said Kevin Appier, who left with a one-run lead after seven innings. He's the best 5-10 pitcher in the league, for all the good that does him.

Appier is another of those Mets who think it the impossible it might still be in the cards. "We're not living in a dream world. It would be a considerable accomplishment," he said. But, and get 5 a Pi. UNO CATAFFO DAILY NEWS I Mike Piazza connects for winner in ninth, showing Mets are always 3 fei game, and maybe drive for postseason, when they play the way they can..