CLOSE your eyes and think back to the Mets playing at Turner Field over the past few seasons. This is what you’re seeing:

Jay Payton, pinch running for Tony Phillips, getting thrown out by a mile on his way to third base; Phillips being driven nuttier, offended at being run for in the first place, livid at the outcome of the play.

Bobby Valentine stubbornly letting his pitchers pitch to Chipper Jones, then watching Larry hammer home runs to win the 1999 National League MVP award.

Al Leiter, pitching on three days rest in decisive Game 6 of the 1999 National League Championship Series, failing to get an out and getting charged with allowing five runs.

Kenny Rogers, in the same game, missing high and wide for Ball 4 with the bases loaded, the final pitch of the century for the Mets.

Mike Piazza getting spiked at home plate by Michael Tucker during one futile series, suffering a concussion in a home plate collision with Gerald Williams during another futile series.

Steve Phillips holding repeated press conferences to address questions about the Mets’ trade for Barry Larkin, which was completed by the Mets and Reds, then undone by Larkin. At one of his many press gatherings, Phillips shared that he was considering sending ownership’s private jet, stocked with players, on a recruiting mission to Cincinnati. That flight never took place and neither did the trade.

Kerry Ligtenberg shaking hands with his catcher at the end of the ninth.

John Rocker shaking hands with his catcher at the end of the ninth.

Heartbreakers, blowouts, disputed calls. Losses, losses, losses.

The Mets have lost an incomprehensible 18 of their past 20 games played at Turner Field.

The Mets no longer must endure watching Jane Fonda rub it in by engaging in the politically incorrect Tomahawk Chop when the Braves pour it on. Sadly, Hanoi Jane no longer frequents Turner Field because she’s no longer married to the man after whom the modern ballpark nobody ever talks about is named.

Jane didn’t take the curse with her. The Mets lost two of three to the Braves at Turner Field in July.

They open a three-game series in Atlanta tonight looking to do more than open ground on the Diamondbacks in the wild-card race and close ground on the Braves in the NL East race.

They must do more than that. They must kill a hex that has hovered over them every time they visit their very own chamber of horrors.

If the Mets don’t, at the very least, win two of three, there is no reason to believe they can get past the Braves and give New York baseball fans the Subway Series they were denied last October when the Braves beat them in the playoffs to play their usual tomato can role to the championship Yankees.

If the Mets don’t win this series, no logical brain can believe they will beat the Braves in an October series for the right to go to the World Series. If they can’t beat the Braves, their only path to the World Series would lie in knocking off their first-round opponent, say the Giants, watching the other division champ, say the Cardinals, knock off the Braves, then knocking off the Cardinals.

The Mets have always had an excuse in previous seasons whenever they played the Braves of the ’90s, that National League dynasty that in every championship season of the last decade save 1990 had the best record in the National League.

Their excuse for losing was they were playing against a better team. It was a difficult point to argue, considering the Braves had a rotation loaded with Cy Young winners.

The explanation no longer applies. The Mets picked up Mike Hampton in the offseason, giving them a formidable one-two punch of Hampton and Al Leiter to match the Braves’ dynamic duo of Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.

I look at the starting rotations, move out to the bullpens, check out the way they field and throw the baseball, and compare their batting orders. And every time, the analysis turns out the same: I think the Mets are a better baseball team this season than the Braves.

What I think, of course, is completely irrelevant. It’s what the Mets think that counts and even though they never could bring themselves to say it, or even think it other than at subconscious levels, it’s obvious the Mets think they aren’t as good as the Braves.

It’s obvious in the way they walk, talk and play baseball every time they make that dreaded trip into Atlanta. What other explanation is there for the Mets playing one way against the rest of the National League and another way entirely against the Braves?

The Mets repeatedly beat Randy Johnson’s brains out and bully the Diamondbacks as if they were the other expansion team, the Devil Rays.

Put a Braves uniform on the Big Unit and he’d be a candidate to toss a perfect game every time he faced the Mets.

The Braves can’t beat the Yankees and the Mets can’t beat the Braves. Everyone knows that. Even the Mets. That’s the problem.