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DETROIT — If the Mets had the good sense to visit a downtown casino before returning to the team hotel last night, they probably bankrupted the place.
After going 299 games without a grand slam, the Mets not only ended the drought, they repeated the trick. In consecutive innings, Jason Bay and Carlos Beltran went deep with the bases loaded, making the Mets the new kings of slam.
Who would have thought there could be an encore after scoring 22 runs in bludgeoning the Rangers over the previous two games? This was one for the Mets history books, in a 14-3 obliteration of the Tigers at Comerica Park.
“I guess the no-hitter is next, right?” winning pitcher R.A. Dickey said, referring to the fact the Mets never have pitched a no-hit game.
Don’t look now, but the Mets (40-39) are above .500 for the first time since April 6. They have won five of their last six games and improved to 22-19 on the road.
Last night marked only the second time in franchise history the Mets hit two grand slams in a game. Bay ended a drought in which the Mets had gone 280 plate appearances with the bases loaded without a home run and opponents had out-slammed them 18-0 since Aug. 1, 2009, when Angel Pagan hit a grand slam against Arizona.
The Mets already led 5-0 when Bay came to bat with the bases loaded and two outs in the fourth against lefty reliever Daniel Schlereth. Bay worked the count to 2-1 before hammering a fastball into the left-field seats for his third career grand slam.
“We’re missing a couple of big bats, we still have some power, but we’re not one of those bopping teams,” Bay said. “It is nice to show we can still hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
An inning later, Beltran hit a 1-0 fastball from Schlereth that just cleared the left-field fence to give the Mets a 13-0 lead. The grand slam was the ninth of Beltran’s career. Beltran was part of the tandem the previous time the Mets hit two grand slams in a game. That came on July 16, 2006, when Beltran and Cliff Floyd hit grand slams in the sixth inning at Wrigley Field.
“[This] was a good thing — I love RBIs, so it was good,” said Beltran, who leads the team with 53 RBIs. “We’re swinging the bat well, so it was great to be able to come through.”
The offensive fireworks — Josh Thole homered with two outs in the fourth to spark a stretch in which seven straight two-out hitters reached and scored and end the Mets’ stretch of five homerless games — made it easy for Dickey (4-7). The knuckleballer allowed three runs on 10 hits over seven innings to get his first victory since June 5.
Jose Reyes finished 4-for-4, a home run short of the cycle, before he was removed for a pinch-runner in the seventh inning. The Mets had a season-high 18 hits and matched a season high with 14 runs, just two games after getting 17 hits and 14 runs against the Rangers. Pagan finished 3-for-3 and Beltran, Thole and Daniel Murphy had two hits apiece.
“The quality of the at-bats, I think, is the biggest thing,” manager Terry Collins said. “We’re pretty disciplined right now, we’re getting pitches we can handle and we’re putting a good swing on them.
“The guy who leads the game off [Reyes], I don’t know what else to say. The rest of the guys, all they are trying to do is their part, and right now it’s a great mix.”
mpuma@nypost.com