THIS time, Rich Gedman got his body in front of the ball, and Bill Buckner got his glove down in time, and when it was one strike away for the Mets, it really was one strike away. This time, with Shea Stadium about to topple into the bay, with 56,357 people poised to scrape their voices against the sky for all time, the Mets actually ran out of outs.

This time, the miracle workers wearing Mets uniforms looked the other way, kept their eyes closed, and kept the bat on Carlos Beltran’s shoulder as he watched a tantalizing curveball from Adam Wainwright flutter past him for strike three. No miracles this time around.

No magic.

No world championship. Not this time. Not this year.

“It hurts,” Beltran would say, his whisper sounding like a shotgun in the funereal stillness of the Mets’ clubhouse, the noise of an on-field Cardinals celebration bleeding through the walls, the reality of a season-ending, 31 loss already weighing like an anvil on his soul. “It hurts, because we accomplished so much this year but we came up short. We left everything on the field. And it wasn’t enough.” Only the Mets could tangle themselves up so thoroughly, could mangle their fans’ emotions so completely, to the point where it was impossible to know if anyone should be furious at a 97-win team coming up one game short of the World Series, or feel fabulous that a team so battered and bruised had managed to drag themselves right to the brink of the sport’s biggest prize.

The Mets themselves were just as ambivalent. “I know we did a lot of good things this year,” said Billy Wagner, “but right now it’s hard to think about that, to be honest with you.” The Mets had already bought themselves this one extra night of baseball by handing the ball to John Maine and grinding to victory in Game 6. Last night, they tried to do the same thing, watching reclamation project Oliver Perez throw six masterful innings, keeping them in the game on the strength of a left arm that suddenly looks like a large part of the Mets’ future.

And it still wasn’t enough. Neither was the play that will likely be the signature moment for the entire 2006 season, the catch Endy Chavez made in the top of the sixth inning that brought Scott Rolen’s home run back into the park, that nearly sent Shea into cardiac arrest and was almost certainly the greatest defensive play in the history of postseason baseball, given the stakes and the degree of difficulty.

“When Endy made that play,” Cliff Floyd said, “I honestly thought that was a sign that we were on our way. I really did.” Shea did, too. A few minutes later the bases were loaded, there was one man out, and you could actually allow yourself to believe that the Mets really were going to find a way to limp into the World Series, really were going to board an airplane that would have delivered them to Detroit sometime this afternoon. But the offense, a monster all season long, their most prized, explosive weapon, died in the October mist, muffled by Jeff Suppan’s gritty right arm. Jose Valentin struck out. Chavez flied out. Their best opportunity was over.

And then it was a matter of a long, uncomfortable wait for someone to make one forever swing. It turned out to be Yadier Molina, allegedly the weakest hitting of three Molina brothers, who tormented the Mets all series and with one swing at one fat Aaron Heilman pitch became this generation’s answer to Terry Pendleton, to Mike Scioscia, two other ghosts who’d ruined October nights at Shea long ago.

“I made one bad pitch,” Heilman said, glassy eyed, sotto voiced. “But in that situation, one pitch is more than enough.” The Mets tried to turn Molina into Dave Henderson instead, into an historical footnote, and one last ninth-inning surge got them two on and none out, and then the bases loaded and two outs. All season long these Mets have tried to tie their legacy to the ’86 Mets, and now here they were again, on the doorstep of another dreamscape.

Only this time, the Mets woke up before the ball could trickle through someone’s legs. No miracle this time. No parade. Just a long, cold, unforgiving winter ahead. Starting immediately.

BATTING 1-FOR-4

The Mets last night suffered their third defeat in four Game 7s. Here’s a look:

WORLD SERIES

October 21, 1973 at Oakland Coliseum

Athletics 5, Mets 2

WORLD SERIES

October 27, 1986 at Shea Stadium

Mets 8, Red Sox 5

NLCS

October 12, 1988 at Dodger Stadium

Dodgers 6, Mets 0

NLCS

October 19, 2006 at Shea Stadium

Cardinals 3, Mets 1