Fernando Tatis couldn’t figure out why the fans were booing him.
The struggling Mets utilityman had just smashed his first career pinch-hit homer — his team’s second blast of yesterday’s seventh inning — and didn’t understand why he heard moaning from the stands.
“I thought maybe they didn’t want me to hit a homer,” Tatis said after the Mets beat the Reds 9-7 at Citi Field. “That was weird.”
The booing was because the apple behind the center-field fence that celebrates a Mets’ homer had not emerged. Brian Schneider homered leading off the inning, ending his team’s 80-inning homerless drought, and got the apple treatment, but Tatis wasn’t so lucky.
“I was laughing when it didn’t go up,” Jeff Francoeur said. “That’s what the joke was, I guess it was a little rusty.”
For much of the inning’s remainder, fans chanted “We want the apple!” Their wish was granted when it emerged after the third out.
A team spokesman later said it takes the apple 2½ minutes to reset and because Schneider and Tatis had homered so close together, there wasn’t enough time for it to reemerge.
The only job less taxing than Citi Field apple operator must be Halley’s Comet party planner. But at least the Mets reached the All-Star break confident it won’t be another 76 years before they hit a homer.
The last previous Mets homer came on July 2 at Pittsburgh, when Tatis hit a two-run blast against Jeff Karstens in the sixth inning of a 9-8 Mets victory in 10 innings. The stretch of 80 innings without a homer was the Mets’ longest since April 16-24 of 2002.
“The only power hitter that we have in our lineup right now is David Wright, so we concentrate more on line drives,” Tatis said. “This park is so big that we’re not even trying to hit home runs. Even if you try to do it, it’s a long way to go.”
Even with yesterday’s power surge, the Mets are last in the major leagues with 52 home runs. But for a day, they removed the apple from the unemployment line — better late than never to celebrate Tatis’ blast.
“It was good to see the apple come up,” manager Jerry Manuel said. “It took its time, but it came up.”
mpuma@nypost.com
