One would think that over two games in which emergency starter Claudio Vargas and no. 5 starter Mike Pelfrey gave up three runs in 14 innings, the Mets would manage at least one win against the lowly Washington Nationals and off-brand pitchers Tim Redding and Jason Bergmann. One would be wrong. Similarly, one would think that the Yankees could figure out a way to avoid being slapped around as the Tampa Bay Rays mounted a charge toward first place, and one would again be wrong. The Subway Series, which starts tonight at Yankee Stadium, is no battle for honor between two hardened champions, but a pair of bums fighting over a ham sandwich in an alley.

A team is what its record says it is, and New York’s teams are fourth- and fifth-place clubs trying to end the series with their records above .500. Both have so far been undone by their signal flaw, which in each case is potentially crippling. There’s a real chance, though it wouldn’t be the safest bet in sports, that neither team will be a serious contender this year.

For the Mets, their critical flaw is the weakness of their second-line talent. David Wright, Johan Santana, John Maine, Ryan Church, and others have played well. Even Jose Reyes, off to a slow start with a .258 AVG/.328 OBA/.413 SLG line, has provided league average hitting, top-rank speed, and strong defense at shortstop, which is performance at a star level. The team, though, basically consists of players having All-Star-class seasons and bantha fodder. It’s not a winning formula.

For the Yankees, age is largely at fault for their travails; they’re both too old and too young. The first problem in the Bronx has been the offense, which has suffered largely due to injuries to Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, and Derek Jeter, all of whom are old enough that injuries — and troubles in recovery — can come as no surprise. The second is the youth of starters Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes, both of whom imploded in April — again not shocking, given the difficulties most young pitchers endure.

While this weekend’s series likely won’t tell us anything we don’t already know about these teams, it will carry ramifications, especially in the case of a sweep or even a split that still leads to a decisive outcome. After all, at least one of these teams will leave this series under .500, and with expectations like those with which they entered the season, it’s a bit late to be losing more than they’re winning.

Should the Yankees take a whipping, the most likely outcome is that Yankeeland’s increasingly buffoonish WFAN caller-in-chief, Hank Steinbrenner, will go on an embarrassing tirade, perhaps again threatening to fix the team “by force,” if necessary, as he did earlier this week. (I personally like the idea of the grub-like Steinbrenner trying to manhandle his employees.) So far as this increases the chances of longtime general manager Brian Cashman leaving to work for someone less clownish this winter and generally makes the atmosphere surrounding the team more circus-like, it would be a bad thing for the Yankees.

Should the Mets get thrashed, though, especially as they’ll enjoy a real edge in the pitching matchups, one would have to expect a formal Willie Randolph deathwatch to start. As I’ve written in this space before, I think it’s time for Randolph to go, in favor of a manager better suited to the National League style. Lots of people disagree, many for very good reasons; but I think many fewer would do so after a pasting at the hands of the Yankees following the embarrassing performance against Washington.

All told, the odds are with the Mets. Tonight, Johan Santana, winner of two Cy Youngs and a Triple Crown, will take on Darrell Rasner, winner of six major league games; Saturday Oliver Perez will take on Andy Pettitte; Sunday, John Maine will take on Chien-Ming Wang. Tonight’s game should be a gimme for the Metropolitans. Saturday, they likely have the slight edge, as Perez has been death to lefties this year, holding them to a .103 batting average in an admittedly small number of at-bats, and the Yankees have a pretty heavily lefty-tilted lineup with Rodriguez and Posada on the shelf. And while Sunday is a very close matchup, maybe tilting a bit toward the Yankees because of Wang’s traditional success at home (he has a career 3.15 ERA at the Stadium), Maine hasn’t given up more than two runs in a start since April 5; there’s no particular reason the Mets shouldn’t be able to win.

Given this, it seems that more is on the line for the Mets. They ought to be able to take two of three, and if they can’t, one can expect the dogs to really start baying. If they can, we’ll likely have to hear from the yappiest dog of them all, and the Bronx will take one more step down the evolutionary ladder toward zoo status. Either way, it should be entertaining at worst.

tmarchman@nysun.com