PHILADELPHIA — Meet Chris Young, three-tool monster: pitch, dunk and hit.
That last tool wasn’t unearthed until last night, when Young — a career .137 hitter entering the game — got his third hit before the Phillies even had their second. Except for an empty gas tank before he could complete six innings, and Young’s Mets debut was a success.
The 6-foot-10 righty held the Phillies to one run over 5 1/3 innings and went 3-for-3 with an RBI, leading the Mets to a 7-1 victory at Citizens Bank Park.
The Mets (3-1) couldn’t be happier with their play since losing Opening Night at Florida. Since then they have received three strong starting-pitching performances and the kind of offensive production that eluded them for most of 2009 and 2010.
David Wright went 4-for-5 with two RBIs on a night Young became the first Mets pitcher to get two hits in the same inning, when he singled twice against Cole Hamels in the third.
“It’s special to be a part of Mets history — it’s a great franchise and certainly I would have never have dreamed that,” Young said.
“But hopefully there’s a lot of great things to come as a team and we can accomplish some great things together.”
Young, who missed most of the last two seasons with the Padres battling shoulder problems, didn’t allow a run until Placido Polanco’s RBI double in the fifth. Young retired Ryan Howard with the bases loaded to end the inning.
With the Mets leading 7-1, manager Terry Collins sent Young back to the mound for the sixth inning despite the fact he had already thrown 90 pitches on a chilly night — temperature was 49 degrees at first pitch with a strong wind gusting to right field.
“Chris said he wanted to go back out there, and he certainly deserved the opportunity,” Collins said. “He said he felt great, so I wanted him to go and start the inning.”
Young, on fumes, allowed a leadoff single to Raul Ibanez before Ben Francisco hit a shot to left that the wind kept in the park for a long out.
After Carlos Ruiz walked, Collins summoned reliever D.J. Carrasco. Young’s final line included five hits and four walks with seven strikeouts. He threw 103 pitches.
“I didn’t think once about my shoulder,” Young said. “It feels good right now.”
The Mets seized control of the game with six runs in the third. After they loaded the bases with nobody out, Wright stroked a two-run single. Ike Davis and Brad Emaus also had RBI singles in the inning.
Young, who had singled leading off the inning, came to the plate again with two outs and delivered a broken-bat RBI single to left. The party ended when Jose Reyes, the 11th batter of the inning, was retired for the final out.
“You knew going into the game you were going up against an elite starting pitcher,” Wright said of Hamels. “You want to try and get him out of there as quickly as you can.”
The lefty Hamels was a mess, allowing six earned runs on seven hits and two walks over 22/3 innings. Hamels fell to 2-9 lifetime with a 4.38 ERA against the Mets. That includes five straight losses.
“The guys are fired up,” Collins said. “They are playing hard, and everybody wants to be a piece of it — which I think will make a big difference in the middle of the season.”
mpuma@nypost.com