Mets' loss raises lingering question: Will Braves' power be the difference in NL East yet again?

It was only one rain-shortened game but it had to be a little too hauntingly familiar for the Citi Field faithful, many of whom are probably still not over the Mets’ final-weekend collapse in Atlanta last season.

The fans showed up on a rainy Friday night hoping for a fresh start with the big, bad Braves, only to get slammed with a double-whammy of sorts.

Once again the Braves’ combination of power and pitching proved better than that of the Mets, at least over five innings, but that’s all it took on this night. The umpires deemed the field unplayable right after the fifth inning, calling for the tarp that, given the forecast, almost surely meant the end of baseball for the night.

So while the game wasn’t called for another hour and 28 minutes, the score of 4-0 stood as official, and because Matt Olson’s three-run home run in the top of the fifth was the knockout punch of sorts, it raised an obvious question that lingers from last season:

Is the long ball again going to be the difference between these teams?

Remember, home runs were indeed the crucial difference in that sweep in Atlanta last October, when the Mets needed only one win to put themselves in position to secure the division.

Just as home-run power similarly put the San Diego Padres over the top in the Wild Card Series as well.

So here we are again. The Mets can score plenty of runs when they’re at their best, putting the ball in play up and down the lineup, and hitting their share of home runs themselves.

But they couldn’t match up with the Braves in the power department last year -- Atlanta led the NL with 243 home runs, the Mets ranked seventh with 171. And this season the Braves are second in the league with 41 home runs, the Mets are tenth with 27.

Could that change?

Probably only if rookies Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez blossom quickly and start to deliver on their power potential. For that matter, Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio could also be part of that equation, especially now that the Mets have begun playing Mauricio at second base in Triple-A Syracuse, perhaps with an eye on calling him up at some point and playing Jeff McNeil in left field at times.

Or the Mets bring in a thumper at the trade deadline, something they chose not to do last year because they wanted to protect their top prospects.

We’ll see. Look, one five-inning game is hardly enough to start drawing any conclusions, but it’s also had to ignore Olson’s long ball when it brought back memories of how badly it ended for the Mets last season.

In truth, the home run may not have mattered since Ronald Acuna’s line-drive single gave the Braves a 1-0 lead just before the Olson home run, and the Mets got only one more crack at Max Fried, getting one runner on base on Alvarez’s single in the bottom of the fifth, before the umps called for the tarp.

Fried is one of the top lefties in baseball, finishing second in the NL Cy Young Award to Sandy Alcantara last season and so far pitching to a rather skinny 0.45 ERA this year - one run in 15 innings despite missing a start due to a hamstring injury.

So obviously there’s a long way to go. The good news for the Mets is that David Peterson was much better overall than he has been for most of this season, looking sharp in holding the Braves scoreless over the first four innings.

But that’s small consolation after the way the roof caved in on him in the fifth. It wasn’t just Olson’s home run, either: four Braves’ hitters laid the wood to him, hitting balls that were over 100 mph in exit velocity, culminating with Olson’s 110.9-mph shot that went 433 feet to right-center.

As such the Mets could have a decision to make as to whether to keep Peterson and his 7.34 ERA in the rotation or essentially put Joey Lucchesi in his spot now that it appears Justin Verlander will make his first start of the season next week in Detroit.

Lucchesi has made a good impression in two starts since being called up due to Carlos Carrasco’s hamstring injury. And while he lives on the edge with average velocity and his slow churve, the Mets are probably better off riding him while he’s pitching well and giving Peterson a chance to work on his command in Triple-A.

Peterson has proven he has value but he has yet to prove he can pitch consistently well at the big-league level. For that matter, Tylor Megill still has a lot to prove as well, and hamstring or no hamstring, Carrasco was so ineffective in his early-season starts that it’s possible he’s in serious decline at age 36.

Kodai Senga also has issues to work out, with his 18 walks and 1.577 WHIP, so beyond anything else, the Mets need Verlander and Max Scherzer to pitch with dominance to have any sort of realistic championship aspirations.

That plan, with Jacob deGrom instead of Verlander, didn’t work out so well either at the end in Atlanta last season.

But, hey, it’s still only April. A new year. It’s just that, well, Friday night felt a little too much like last year. Even if they only did play five innings.