In the midst of a nine-game homestand, having dropped two-of-three to the Marlins and residing six games back of the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves, the New York Mets welcomed the middling Colorado Rockies into town for a three-game set.

Mets right-hander Rick Reed did his part to set the tone in the first game of the series, allowing three runs (two earned), striking out 10 and walking none over seven innings, bringing his ERA to 3.38 on the still-young season.

The Metsies stayed in the game against Rockies’ right-hander — and former Mets hurler — Masato Yoshii, tying the game at three on Todd Zeile‘s solo home run in the seventh, but it was all for naught.

Despite a scoreless frame in the eighth from left-hander John Franco and two more courtesy of Armando Benitez, the Mets offense couldn’t solve Colorado’s right-handed reliever, Julian Tavares.

In the top of the 11th, Rockies legend Bubba Carpenter (31 career plate appearances) took Turk Wendell deep to give Colorado the lead. Zeile doubled with one out in the bottom half, but closer Jose Jimenez shut the door on that opportunity, sending the Mets their tenth loss over 14 games in May.

The loss also dropped the Mets to 20-20 on the season.

With the Braves waist-deep in their record divisional-title streak, and the highest of hopes in Queens heading into 2000 to snap that stretch of prosperity in Atlanta, a .500 record at this point in the season for New York simply wouldn’t get the job done. The morning of May 17 would be the last time the Mets would wake up at the .500 mark that season.

Southpaw Al Leiter took the ball that day and dazzled, turning in eight innings of two-run ball, striking out eight, and walking two.

Two two-out RBI hits from Jeff Cirillo and Jeffrey Hammonds in the third put Colorado ahead 2-0, but besides two stray singles in the sixth and eighth from Hammonds and Mike Lansing, respectively, Leiter imposed his will in a 4-2 win over the Rockies.

Joe McEwing scored Benny Agbayani on an RBI squibbler in the third to cut Colorado’s lead to 2-1, Robin Ventura added a two-out, two-run RBI double in the bottom of the fifth to put the Mets ahead, and Derek Bell sealed the deal with an RBI single in the eighth.

The series finale versus Colorado on Wednesday was rained out, giving the Mets a day to regroup before taking on the NL West-contending Arizona Diamondbacks for three games.

Arizona, at 27-13 heading into the series, had two aces atop their rotation in Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, seasoned veterans littered among the roster in Luis Gonzalez, Steve Finley, Matt Williams, Jay Bell, and Tony Womack, and two solid left-handers coming out of the bullpen to quell the Mets’ lefty-heavy lineup in Greg Swindell and Dan Plesac.

This team was a force, as their World Series title in 2001 would soon prove. Fortunately for the Mets, the D-Backs were forced to employ a full rotation during the regular season, and they would miss one-half of Arizona’s deadly duo over the three-game set.

Right-hander Todd Stottlemyre (four runs over 6.1 innings) would fare much better than lefty Omar Daal (six runs, four earned, over 3.1 innings) over the first two games, but the Mets’ offense would be too much to handle for the Diamondbacks — almost.

Mike Piazza‘s 11th homer of the season put the Mets ahead for good in the fifth inning of the first game of the series and scoreless relief appearances from Wendell, Franco, and Benitez made Bobby Jones‘ six-inning effort stand up in New York’s 4-3 win.

Edgardo Alfonzo continued his torrid season at the plate, going 2-for-4 in the Mets’ first win — raising his line to .347/.462/.549 on the year — and added a two-run homer in the second game to give the Mets an 8-0 lead in the seventh.

Cruise control on, right? “Not so fast,” said the Mets’ bullpen.

Pat Mahomes allowed two runs to cross in the eighth, but a six-run cushion was good enough, so let’s get Rich Rodriguez some work. Rodriguez got into trouble fast, allowing a single, a double, and a walk to his first three batters faced, cutting the lead to 8-3.

A double-play ground ball via Hanley Frias eased concerns, but things were far from over. Womack’s single to score Travis Lee in the next at-bat made it an 8-4 game and Damian Miller‘s base hit ended Rodriguez’s night, so Franco was called on to get the final out.

Not quite. The veteran lefty gave up three consecutive base hits to slice the Mets’ lead to 8-7, so Benitez — owner of a 5.09 ERA at this point of the season — was tabbed to get the job done, which he did with a looking strikeout of Erubiel Durazo.

As if that wasn’t enough stress for the week, New York was slated to face The Big Unit in Sunday’s homestand finale.

Johnson had his best stuff — as evidenced by his 13 strikeouts on the day — but the Mets’ offense came to play, taking advantage of mistakes and staying alive against the future Hall of Fame lefty.

Arizona got to Reed early on, jumping to a 1-0 lead on Finley’s two-out RBI single in the first, but the Mets struck back, stringing together three straight doubles to start their day against Johnson to take a 2-1 lead.

Three consecutive singles off Reed to start the third tied the game at two, and Finley’s RBI groundout later in the frame gave Arizona a 3-2 lead, but Piazza’s 12th bomb of the season knotted the game at three in the bottom half.

Lee’s two-run homer off Reed in the sixth gave the Diamondbacks a 5-3 lead, but two solo homers in the seventh from McEwing and — who else — Edgardo Alfonzo (finished the homestand 10-for-26 with two homers, two doubles, and six RBIs) brought the Mets back to life once again and ended Johnson’s peculiar day, but the wildness didn’t stop there.

Finley took left-hander Dennis Cook deep in the top of the eighth to give Arizona a 6-5 lead, Ventura then homered off Mike Morgan in the bottom of the frame to tie things up once again.

Following a scoreless eighth from Wendell, McEwing drew a leadoff walk in the ninth, stole second, and Derek Bell sent the Shea faithful home happy with a walk-off single to finish off the homestand strong.

Off to sunny San Diego…