ATLANTA – It was the last pitch of Greg Maddux’ night, but it might have been the best. When his two-strike curveball came inside on Daryl Hamilton and broke back over the plate to end the seventh inning – running his unscored-upon streak to 291/3 innings – the crowd at Turner Field leapt to its feet and roared its approval. And Maddux, expressionless, had no clue. He didn’t hear a sound. That’s how locked in the Braves ace is.

“That’s when you know you’re on: You don’t know [the crowd’s roaring]. That’s when you’re locked in,” said Maddux, and is he ever locked in. His seven innings of five-hit ball lifted Atlanta to a 6-3 beating of the Mets, and gave the Braves a four-game lead in the NL East.

Maddux (18-8) hasn’t given up a run since Sept. 2 at Houston; hasn’t given up a walk since that game as well, 302/3 innings ago. And while the Mets hit him in the literal sense – when Todd Zeile’s fifth-inning shot hit him on the left calf – but the Amazin’s sure couldn’t buy a hit off Maddux last night.

“He was fantastic,” Braves manager Bobby Cox said. “He got hit on the leg and his calf swelled up. He was really hanging those last two innings. I didn’t know if he could go.”

But he did go for two more innings. The closest he came to giving up a run was in his final frame, the seventh. Robin Ventura led off with a single to right, and after Zeile and Jay Payton both flied out to right, Mike Bordick dropped a bloop single down the right-field line. Ventura went to third, but Hamilton stranded him there, looking at strike three – as if he ever really had another option, on that knee-buckler.

Stoic Maddux walked off the mound as the crowd of 41,937 roared its approval. He told Cox “I’m done,” and headed into the clubhouse. Afterwards he said his calf is fine and that he left because of fatigue, not injury.

He fell two innings short of being the first Brave to throw three straight shutouts since Lou Burdette in 1960. But the person least impressed with Maddux’ scoreless steak is Maddux himself.

“It’s flat-out luck,” Maddux said. “You make mistakes and have somebody foul them back. Things are going right for you. Your mistakes don’t fall in. That happens sometimes. Guys get cheap hits all the time, but that hasn’t been happening. Pitchers give up line drives for outs, and I’ve gotten more than my fair share.”

In reality, he’s had more than his share of bad luck. In six games from July 22 to Aug. 18 he’s given up just a dozen earned runs – 2.61 ERA – but went just 1-4, because the Braves managed just 10 for him. Pitching coach Leo Mazzone said Maddux isn’t doing much different than what he’s always done.

“This is him. He commands the strike zone, he changes speeds. He’s been doing this for… how many years has he been in the majors? That’s why he’s going to the Hall of Fame.”