Who needs Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy when you have got Ruben Tejada and Lucas Duda?
Not the Mets — at least while they’re playing the no-name Padres and their depleted bullpen.
For a second straight night, the Mets staged an unlikely comeback in the late innings with Tejada and Duda providing clutch at bats.
“You can’t say enough about the guys — the kids — and what they’ve been doing,” 38-year-old Jason Isringhausen said after Tejada capped a three-run eighth in the Mets’ 5-4 win over San Diego last night at Citi Field.
It came one night after Duda came through with a game-winning single in the ninth, and Duda played a pivotal role in this win, as well.
With the Mets (58-57) down 4-2 to start the inning, Angel Pagan led off with a homer. He has homered in each of the past two games subbing for Reyes in the leadoff spot — a position he has had trouble with before.
Justin Turner and David Wright singled and Duda, hitting cleanup, went to manager Terry Collins and suggested he bunt them over.
The strategy paid off, as Jason Bay was walked intentionally to load the bases and pinch-hitter Nick Evans lifted a sacrifice fly to center to tie the game at 4-4. After Ronny Paulino walked to load them again, Tejada — hitless in his three previous at bats — walked off Josh Spence to end it.
“He threw a lot of breaking balls, and I waited for my pitch,” said Tejada, who added the last pitch wasn’t difficult to let go by. “It’s hard when it’s close. The last pitch was really, really bad.”
“I told him he just hit a walk-off homer,” Pagan said.
And it helped make Duda look like a genius.
“I was hoping it worked out,” Duda said of his suggestion to bunt. “If it didn’t, then why bunt your four-hole hitter? You look like an idiot.”
Instead, the Mets won their second straight since losing a game — as well as Reyes and Murphy — on Sunday. And, according to Elias Sports Bureau, it was just the first time the Mets won consecutive games when trailing by at least two runs in the eighth inning or later since April 1965.
“We lost two guys in the heart of our lineup,” Duda said. “I think we’re going to scratch and claw and see what we can do.”
Last night, that resulted in another step forward for Tejada, who has shown a knack for hitting with two strikes — something that has impressed Collins.
“It is rare,” Collins said of the young shortstop. “That’s what makes this kid special. When I got here last year, they said, ‘Wait [until] you see the instincts he has for this game.’ They’re head and shoulders above most 21-year-olds.”
The rally got Chris Capuano off the hook. The lefty gave up four runs in six innings and has won just once in his last six starts. A pair of runs in the fourth and then in the fifth did him in.
Manny Acosta came in and finished a scoreless seventh, but had to leave after Alberto Gonzalez’s chopper deflected off Acosta’s right pinky, partially tearing the nail. He likely won’t be available tonight.
D.J. Carrasco pitched out of trouble in the eighth to improve to 1-2.
“We lost some key players. Something we didn’t want,” Pagan said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re going to stop playing.”
For another night, at least, they didn’t.
dan.martin@nypost.com