It’s Do or Die Time for Mets : Analysis: Team must get streak going to move into NL East contention.

The opportunity of the season has arrived for the New York Mets. If they are to make something out of their summer and keep Shea Stadium from another empty August and September, the moment is right now.

They won their third consecutive game Sunday. There are six more games on this homestand, beginning with three games with the awful Los Angeles Dodgers, who just coughed up three straight to the Philadelphia Phillies while allowing 31 runs.

This is either the start of something or just another tease. It is the sixth time the Mets have won three in a row. Three times they won a fourth consecutive game. They never have gone beyond that.

“This is the time we have to get to .500 and then sustain some sort of drive,” ace pitcher David Cone said. “We can’t continue this dance of three steps forward and two steps back. Because if we do, all of a sudden it’s the middle of August or the beginning of September and we’re still around .500. And then it’s too late.

“We have to start thinking about winning series. We took three out of four from the Giants. We have to take two out of three from the Dodgers. Minimum.”

The Mets last won four in a row in June. Then one Thursday afternoon the Chicago Cubs hung seven first-inning runs on them, Bobby Bonilla called the press box and the team regressed, going 7-10 leading to the All-Star break. They don’t have the time left in their season to write off three weeks again like that.

“I know what you’re saying,” general manager Al Harazin said, “but I’m not prepared to come out and make those conclusions right now. I knew coming in that this was an important homestand for us. We needed to play well, win some ballgames and feel good about ourselves.”

You look at the Mets’ schedule and Aug. 4 jumps out at you. They play in Pittsburgh that night. It is the first of five games in nine days against the first-place Pirates. After that, they have only 49 games left.

The Mets have 12 games to generate some real momentum going into Pittsburgh. They play three of those games at home against the San Diego Padres and the other nine against three of worst teams in the league: the Dodgers, Phillies and Cubs.

“We’ve got to be above .500 by then,” Cone said, “and making a move.”

You hesitate from reading the Mets’ tea leaves anymore -- they have been so full of false promises -- but they told an encouraging story for them Sunday. They won a game with their fifth starter, Pete Schourek, on the mound. It was only the seventh time in 20 games this year they won with either their fourth or fifth starter out there.

They actually scored four runs in the fourth inning, capped by a three-run double by Dick Schofield that brought nearly the entire team out of the dugout in a World Series sort of glee. And why not? It was the first time in 195 innings the Mets scored more than three runs in an inning.

Schofield added a three-run home run in the eighth, a blast that rescued manager Jeff Torborg from the curious move of removing Daryl Boston for Pat Howell as early as the sixth inning. Torborg said he did so for defensive purposes, though the move left Howard Johnson in leftfield, where he is inexperienced and admittedly uncomfortable.

So when the Mets had the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the sixth, it was Howell, and not Boston, who batted. It was still a one-run game then. Howell grounded out. It was a critical moment then, but Schofield rendered it moot with his illogical home run.

“That’s what we need,” Bret Saberhagen said. “We need other guys in the lineup to come through. Eddie (Murray), Bobby and HoJo can’t do it every day. We’ve got to get it from different guys on different days.”

Saberhagen comes back Tuesday night, his first appearance since May 15. He should be pitching in the minor leagues to regain his arm strength and to sharpen his control, but the Mets don’t have time to wait, not with Dwight Gooden out.

The Mets are asking too much from Saberhagen. They are 24-32 since he last pitched. The longer he stayed out, the more vital his return became. Now, after more than two months of inactivity, he needs to pitch well immediately.

“If we’re going to do it,” Saberhagen said, “it has to be done very shortly. We can’t wait much longer.”