ATLANTA – In the same 24-hour period Barry Larkin said no to the Mets and yes to the Reds’ astonishing three-year, $27 million contract, the Braves’ pennant insurance policy went through the Mets’ injury-depleted lineup like an umpire goes through a buffet table.

Andy Ashby, the right-hander who was so awful with the Phillies, made his second consecutive brilliant start for the Braves, the National League’s model organization.

The Braves quietly acquired Ashby without having to worry about 72-hour windows, or proposed recruiting trips or contract extension demands.

Ashby just as quietly negotiated his way through the Mets’ batting order last night for a 1-0 victory that swung a three-game series in the favor of the Braves at packed Turner Field last night.

These weren’t the ’27 Yankees that Ashby defeated. They weren’t even the June, 2000 Mets.

The Mets’ leadoff hitter, Lenny Harris, came into the game batting .198. Harris was at third, Joe McEwing at second. Robin Ventura is on the disabled list with a sore right shoulder and Edgardo Alfonzo’s hip pointer forced him to miss the entire series.

Still, it’s not as if Ashby didn’t have to work for his four-hit shutout. He had to retire Mike Piazza with a runner on second and nobody out in the ninth and he did it, getting him to ground out to third. Then he had to get Todd Zeile and he did it by retiring him on a low lineout to short.

Braves manager Bobby Cox visited Ashby on the mound after the Zeile liner and the crowd cheered the manager off the mound for making the decision to let Ashby finish what he started. He finished it by getting Benny Agbayani to ground to short to strand Jay Payton.

This is how seamless Ashby’s transition has been to the Braves: The record shows he has made two starts and pitched two complete games. He is 2-0 with a 0.50 ERA for the Braves.

It has been such a smooth pennant insurance deal for the Braves that even when Ashby was awful in a three-inning start in which he allowed nine hits and six earned runs, it didn’t count. The 6-6 tie was rained out and washed away from the record books.

That’s how the Braves make deals to strengthen their team for the pennant stretch.

And then there is the Mets.

Friday night, on the verge of the first pitch of the series, Steve Phillips let some of his players know the Mets had reached agreement with the Reds on a trade for Larkin. Phillips did this because Larkin had gone public with the furtive conditional trade.

Phillips, playing the role of scout leader, planned a field trip to Cincinnati on the owner’s plane, a recruiting field trip replete with players and the manager, who managed to bite his cheeks hard enough to prevent from laughing at the idea. Larkin told Phillips to scratch the outing.

Late Saturday night, agent Eric Goldschmidt let Phillips know his client wasn’t interested in going to the Mets because they weren’t interested in granting him a three-year contract extension.

Yesterday morning, at a news conference he called to inform the deal was dead, Phillips said he did not anticipate Larkin would play with the Reds beyond this season.

Last night, in Cincinnati, the Reds held a news conference to announce they had signed Larkin to the three-year, $27 million contract he wanted in the first place.

“I guess we got Barry Larkin a new contract,” Phillips said. “Maybe I should call Eric Goldschmidt back and ask him what my cut is.”

And oh, by the way, while all this madness was going on between Reds general manager Jim Bowden, a rare rebel among general managers, and Phillips, who spent the weekend scratching his goatee, the Braves and Mets played a three-game series.

Melvin Mora, whose trip got off to such an awful start when he booted a routine, game-ending double play ball to cost the Mets a game against the Red Sox, watched the Larkin madness play games with his job security, but never with his head.

Mora went back on a bloop, timed his jump perfectly and denied Ashby of a bases-loaded hit in the second. Handcuffed by a bad hop on a Javy Lopez grounder in the sixth, Mora made the play.

He wasn’t the only one who had a hand in the Mets playing a sharp game, only to lose. Right fielder Derek Bell stuck his glove over the right field fence to steal a three-run home run from Chipper Jones in the fifth.

In the end, it didn’t matter because the Braves have done it again, they have found the right man to go after and the player became so much better once he put on a Braves jersey. Ashby put the Mets six games behind the Braves in the National League standings, an even more distressing situation than Larkin putting egg on the Mets’ faces.