FLUSHING, NY – The Mets have seen this before. Actually, this horror show was almost scripted with a nice starting performance whipped out by bad bullpen performance.

The game was shaping up to nice story. Claudio Vargas - who came into Shea Stadium with a career ERA of over 10 at the old ballyard – became the Mets latest reclamation project with a strong 6 1/3 innings performance, giving up only one run and leaving Elijah Dukes on base with a walk. The former Brewer deserved better than a no-decision as he left with the score tied 1-1.

Vargas didn’t even get that, because Aaron Heilman came in. The struggling reliever did get one out when David Wright made a nice barehanded play on Willie Mo Pena and the righthander proceeded to go up two strikes to catcher Jesus Flores.

But the Notre Dame grad didn’t have the luck of the Irish on his side tonight. Instead of putting Flores away, he started to nibble and after three straight balls, Dukes was singled in by the catcher to put Vargas on the losing side and then proceeded to give up a walk and two more singles, ending his performance with the Amazins’ behind 5-1.

“You have the hitter 0-2, you have to get the hitter up there,” said Manager Willie Randolph. “That’s a huge at bat and he didn’t get the job done.”

Randolph wanted Heilman to go two innings tonight, because Matt Wise pitched yesterday and was coming back from injury and Scott Schoeneweis has the flu. But the righthander couldn’t get two outs.

“I made a couple of good pitches and some found a hole,” Heilman said. “It’s certainly frustrating and you try to keep your team into the game and score a couple of runs, which we did. I make the play and who knows what happens.”

Get used to answers. No matter how many scrap heap guys the Mets put into the rotation and no matter how good the Figueroas and Vargases of the world pitch in New York, the team will go nowhere as long as they have a leaky bullpen that generously kills leads the way Sue Simmons knocks away adult beverages.

Here’s the problem. Randolph likes to use his relievers as interchangeable parts, so they never know when they are coming in. “I expect my guys to be ready whenever they are called,” he said, but is it working?

The manager needs to get his relievers into roles because this multipurpose relief core is not working. Baseball players like routines and like to know when they will be used, so they can get ready to pitch depending in the situation. By not giving the relievers stated roles, they will be forced to get ready when they may not be mentally into the game.

So, Randolph needs to tell his hurlers who the seventh inning guy in [either Heilman or Matt Wise], the eighth inning go to reliever [Duaner Sanchez], the righty specialist [Joe Smith], the lefty specialist [Pedro Feliciano] and the long man, who comes in when the team is down or in special situations [Scott Schoeneweis or even Heilman if Wise is your seventh inning guy].

Unfortunately that’s not the way he manages and the bullpen will continue to be worked as it has all year.

So next time it could be Vargas, John Maine, Oliver Perez or even Johan Santana, who gets wins taken away from them because of a subpar ‘pen.

And it will hurt the Mets in the long term. Although it is still technically early and they are still only a couple of a games out of first, the 20-18 club may find themselves slipping away if the ‘pen continues to kill quality performances by surprise starters like the gem Vargas threw tonight..

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