ATLANTA -- It was after a particularly offensive, typically Rockie runfest in Denver seven years ago, that Colorado's manager at the time, Jim Leyland, offered an addendum to one of the game's longest-standing axioms: "Pitching is 90 percent of the game."

Leyland's qualifier was this: "Unless the pitching's lousy. Then it's 110 percent."

His point was simple: When pitching struggles, no other part of the game operates normally. The game doesn't feel right. Leyland had little use for 10-5 games -- wins or losses.

The Mets played one of those games on Sunday, though the score was a less appalling to the purist -- Braves 8, Mets 5. Less than 24 hours after that handsome, 1-0 victory Saturday night made the Mets proud of their brand of ball, they were involved in another one of those more-is-too-much things that looks more like a stain than a result in the record book.

Consider these blemishes: Time of game, three hours, 22 minutes; number of walks (both teams), 15. The former had a lot to do with the latter.

The Mets, for their part, thought the umpiring had a lot to do with the latter. Steve Trachsel, their starter and the losing pitcher, felt restricted in what he could say about the strike zone as it had been defined by home-plate umpire Alfonso Marquez. He held his tongue, but did acknowledge the difficulty of pitching to a strike zone without corners. Teammates suggested Marquez's zone was without a middle at times, too.

"And when you're constantly behind in the count," Trachsel said, "your options are narrowed."

The only option, as he saw it, was to throw more hittable pitches while trying to effect damage control. So Trachsel was caught in the middle and allowed eight of the Braves' 12 hits and five of their eight walks in 3 2/3 innings. Those ingredients produced six runs, enough to poke a pretty large hole in his team's objective: to sweep the Braves in their home.

"It would have been nice," Trachsel said.

But rather than fantasize a sweep, Trachsel was left to deal with what was -- statistically -- his least effective performance in five starts this season. The walks, hits and runs were ugly enough. He found the strikes-to-balls ratio, 44-43, to be grotesque. Forgetting the Braves' uncharacteristic pitching problems this season, he asked, "How can the best two pitching staffs in the league give up 15 walks?"

He wasn't seeking an answer.

"I'd rather get absolutely lit up ... give up eight home runs," Trachsel said. "I'd rather lose that way."

Their options limited, Trachsel and two of his successors, Darren Oliver and Jorge Julio, fell victim to Jeff Francoeur, the Braves' young right fielder who began the three-game series as a latter-day Hurricane Hazel, batting .190 after his celebrated debut last summer. Francoeur had four hits and five RBIs, driving in the last two of the six runs charged to Trachsel (2-2) with a single off of Oliver in the fourth and two runs in the sixth with a massive home run to left-center off of Julio.

Trachsel, his start moved up one day to face the Braves, provided the shortest outing by a Mets starter this season, 3 2/3 innings. The Mets trailed 3-0 after two innings, but tied the score with three runs in the third against winning pitcher Kyle Davies (2-2), the first two scoring on a Carlos Beltran's fourth home run.

Cliff Floyd drove in another with a single. But Francoeur's bloop single to right drove in Andruw Jones in the sixth. The Braves never trailed thereafter.

Endy Chavez hit his first home run in the sixth to provide the Mets' fourth run. And the Mets scored in the eighth on a bases-loaded walk to Jose Reyes, his -- are you ready for this? -- third walk of the game. Not only was that a career high, it marked the fourth successive game in which Reyes has drawn a walk -- for a total of seven walks.

But the shape and the tension had been taken from the game by then, by the glut of runs, the pace of the game.

"It got a little out of hand," manager Willie Randolph said.

But whatever complaints that Mets had were either whispered or expressed with tact. Most found solace in wining two of three games here and six of 10 on a difficult three-stop, bicoastal excursion. They had been seeking their first sweep in this city since 1979. They would accept two of three.

"We wanted to sweep once we took the first two," Randolph said. "I get greedy. But it's a long season. We've played for a month, but I don't think we done anythng yet. And one more [victory] wasn't going to change that."