THIS is the time for the Mets. It is no longer good enough to be the apprentice, no longer good enough to be the other team in New York and playing for second place in the NL East.

In payroll and in pedigree, the Mets have every right to believe they are ready to be more than a foil. It is not satisfactory anymore to talk about closing the gap on the Yankees in the Big Apple and the Braves within the division.

Here is the opening. Here is the time for a statement. Here is the time for the Mets to show that they are ready to be the chased rather than be the eternal pursuer.

It is clear now that the Yankees and Braves are vulnerable, that they are not simply going to steamroll to another late October date. But the weaknesses of these teams are nothing if the Mets cannot capitalize upon them with strength.

“You have to go out and do it,” John Franco said. “You can go out and talk to you are blue in the face. If you don’t win the World Series, then you can’t talk. Until then, keep your mouth shut.”

So it is the moment for the Mets to speak with their play. To show their strength. To deliver a loud, clear message that this is their season. Between now and the All-Star break, the Mets could make a statement that they are the team to beat. In New York. And in the NL East.

Beginning last night, the Mets had 20 games to the break. All but four are at Shea, including a four-game series against the Braves and a three-game set against the Yanks that will have the oddity of a singular game added in The Bronx as a rain makeup.

The Mets opened a four-opponent, 13-game homestand last night. The first three foes – Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Florida – were a combined 27 games under .500.

Before last night, the Mets’ record was one game better record than the Yankees. But the Yanks were in first place and the Mets trailed the Braves by 3½ games. Here are three weeks to change perceptions.

For the Mets to climb to first. First in the NL East. First in the city. We have reached a point where it is no longer good enough for the Mets to be building toward something. It is time to be built.

“We’ve seen the Braves’ behind for quite a while and it is not the view we want,” Mets GM Steve Phillips said. “It is probably the same with the Yankees. On any given day, we have stood side by side with those two teams. But over the long haul we have been behind. It definitely would be interesting to see the different view.”

Look at what is happening in the AL Central. For six years, the Indians essentially went unchallenged. Now suddenly the White Sox have made a mark. They got ahead in the division and Cleveland, in an unfamiliar spot, does not look like it knows how to play from behind. And so the Indians began last night 8½ games behind, closer to the last-place Tigers, who have the AL’s worst record, than to the rampaging White Sox.

It has been quite a while since the Braves have had to fight for the division title from behind. How would Atlanta behave if it became the hunter rather than the hunted?

“We would only know if it means something at the end,” Phillips said.

But the opening exists now. The Braves threw up a fantastic May and yet it is late June and the Mets have not been shaken. They

are on Atlanta’s tail. However, that is a too familiar spot. On paper, there is no reason to believe that the NL East belongs to the Braves over the Mets. The Mets, though, must believe that, not simply mouth the words.

They must believe that the front of their rotation is as capable as Atlanta’s and that the back of the Brave rotation is as troublesome as that of the Mets’. They must buy into the idea that a lineup featuring MVP threats Edgardo Alfonzo and Mike Piazza could hit with the Braves. They must recognize that Bobby Valentine, in his longest stretch as Mets manager without being caught in a storm, is nowhere near the distraction of John Rocker and that Rocker is nowhere near as consistent a closer as Armando Benitez.

“It looks different on paper on June 20, but there is a lot of baseball left,” Phillips said. “I think that when October comes around that the Braves and Yankees will still be part of that mix.”

Certainly no one should believe either powerhouse completely faded. The Yanks did have that first-place designation. The Braves, even without John Smoltz and with some of their special glow faded, still had the NL’s best record. But the starting pitching that separated those teams from all others is not nearly as dominant. And the feeling that late October is their birthright is disappearing, if not completely gone.

The question is, who will step into the void? Who will push the Yanks off the backpage, the Braves to second place? The Mets have been gaining toward this moment with 88, 88 and 97 wins, with a hard charge into a dignified NLCS loss to the Braves last year, with an expansion of payroll and star base.

“There is an opportunity,” Robin Ventura said. “No one in this clubhouse thinks we’re not as good as those teams.”

Ya Gotta Believe.