James McCann gets four of the Mets' 13 hits, one of their five HRs, in rout of Atlanta

Forget staying afloat, biding time, merely getting by while waiting for their hurt players to heal. The replace-Mets are on a bona fide hot streak.

A 13-2 victory over Atlanta on Saturday was the Mets’ fourth win in a row and stretched their lead in the NL East to 3 1/2 games, the largest in baseball. The Mets have not led the division by a larger margin since the end of the 2015 season, on their way to the World Series.

Not bad for a team with 16 players on the injured list.

"We know we got a lot of injuries right now, but every guy that we’ve acquired or came up from the minor leagues, they’ve all done their part," righthander Taijuan Walker said. "That’s what makes teams great."

This one had a little bit of everything: a season-high runs total; five scoreless innings and eight strikeouts from Walker (4-1), who returned from the injured list; a quintet of home runs by the motley crew of James McCann, Jonathan Villar, Brandon Drury, Billy McKinney and Francisco Lindor; and even a single from Cameron Maybin.

His weak ground ball, which stayed fair on its way toward third base, ended his 0-for-27 stretch, the longest hitless streak to begin a Mets career in franchise history. It came off the bat at 63.6 mph. The Mets’ dugout and Citi Field crowd loved it.

"That’s probably my favorite hit of the game," said McCann, who was 4-for-5, a triple shy of the cycle.

Batting third because the Mets (25-20) have so few other options and playing first base in the absence of the injured Pete Alonso, McCann had two RBIs and three runs scored.

He blasted a solo homer in the first and added a double in the third (reaching third base after centerfielder Guillermo Heredia bobbled it). The single came in the fourth inning. In two tries with a shot to complete the cycle, McCann had an RBI single in the sixth and struck out swinging in the seventh.

All that raised his average from .197 to .221 and his OPS from .536 to .611.

With the ballpark almost entirely empty after the game, a still-in-uniform McCann brought his family, including 3-year-old twin sons, on the field for an impromptu photo shoot.

"It has taken us a while to put together a game like this, being able to put up runs, guys coming through in big spots," McCann said. "Everyone contributed. That makes it a lot of fun in the dugout."

Walker looked like his regular self after an 11-day stay on the IL with left side tightness, though he did not swing, per orders of manager Luis Rojas and the training staff. He held Atlanta (24-26) to two hits and one walk.

His 1.84 ERA ranks sixth in the majors, ahead of the Dodgers’ Trevor Bauer (2.07), Padres’ Yu Darvish (2.16) and Nationals’ Max Scherzer (2.27), among others.

"I gotta also single out his ability to hold runners, something he hasn’t done really well in his career. He’s done it really well for us this season," Rojas said. "He held the ball well, threw over a few times and gave [Tomas] Nido a chance to throw out [Ronald Acuna Jr.] in the first inning. Overall a good outing for him."

The Mets reached Atlanta’s Ian Anderson, a rookie righthander, for four runs in four innings. The game was close until the Mets scored seven runs — their most in an inning this year — in the sixth.

Since the Mets put Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil on the IL with hamstring injuries nearly two weeks ago, they are 7-4, including 4-1 against Atlanta, perhaps the Mets’ greatest threat in their quest for NL East supremacy.

These 13 runs, though, were one more than the Mets had scored in the prior week.

"It’s a really good example for the guys just to slow things down offensively and be able to translate that into the next day," Rojas said. "That’s what we got to do now, the consistency part."