MIAMI — The Mets would not have been struck down by lightning or swarmed by locusts or, even worse, sent plummeting to last place if they lost to the Florida Marlins on Wednesday night. But it is telling, even this early in a season, that the team has responded to the adversity of losing its second ace and mascot, Pedro Martínez, for perhaps the next six weeks.

Resilience appeared in the form of a 13-0 demolition that reinforced how much of a challenge the Mets’ punishing lineup can pose for an inexperienced pitcher and also how good Oliver Pérez can be, even if no one can predict when those times will come. Now the Mets’ de facto No. 2 starter, Pérez struck out eight while allowing five singles in six scoreless innings, providing the stabilizing influence the team is counting on while Martínez is on the disabled list with a strained left hamstring.

“If I could bottle that up and put it away,” Manager Willie Randolph said of Pérez’s performance. “We needed that from him.”

Pérez could have pitched deeper into the game, but there was no need to leave him in, not with the Mets leading by 10-0 through six innings, courtesy of a five-run sixth. The big hits came from José Reyes (two-run double) and David Wright, whose 433-foot homer, a three-run blast, rifled off his bat with such authority that his teammates scampered out of the dugout to gawk.

“I have a newfound respect for Marlins hitters,” Wright said of the spacious dimensions of Dolphin Stadium. “You really have to crush one to get it out of here.”

The stacked Mets lineup did not let a Marlins starter last past the fifth inning for the third consecutive game, tagging Andrew Miller for five runs and eight hits in four and a third innings.

The Mets’ starting outfield — Carlos Beltrán, Ángel Pagán and Ryan Church — combined for eight hits, five runs and five runs batted in. Beltrán tied a club record by hitting doubles in his first three at-bats, raising his total to five (the third one was first ruled a home run). In the second inning Church belted the team’s first homer of 2008. That it came against a left-hander was particularly encouraging for Church, whose status as the Mets’ everyday right fielder hinges on how well he hits lefties.

“He did me a favor,” Church said. “His first two pitches were fastballs that hit the glove before I even swung.”

It was the sort of overall showing that the Mets could reflect on as they finally prepared to leave Florida after two months for a more formidable challenge in Atlanta, where the Braves will throw their three best pitchers — Tim Hudson, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz — in a weekend series.

John Maine is scheduled to pitch the opener Friday, and he is lumped in the same category as Pérez; the Mets expect both to improve upon their 15 victories of a season ago. It is even more imperative now, with chaos swirling around the rotation, that Pérez, the more erratic of the two, supplies some semblance of steadiness during Martínez’s absence.

The Mets had no reason to be concerned with Pérez when he left spring training with a 5.40 earned run average — his two worst starts came against Cleveland in difficult weather conditions — but there is always that measure of skepticism whenever he pitches. As in, which Pérez will the Mets see, the one who beat the Yankees twice and held opponents to a .229 average or the one who staggered in his final regular-season start against the Marlins during the final weekend of last season’s collapse?

“He’s gotten to the point where he knows what he needs to do,” Wright said. “To be there in the shadow of Pedro being out for an extended period of time, it was big.”

Pérez skated through the Marlins’ lineup, shutting down their aggressive hitters with his lethal slider and occasional changeup. For Pérez, the game’s crucial moment came in the first, when the leadoff hitter Hanley Ramírez smoked a ball off the right-field wall. Church played it perfectly and fired a ball that popped into Reyes’s glove at second base just as Ramírez was sliding in. Pérez retired 9 of the next 13 batters, striking out six, and the Mets pounded Miller, a 6-foot-9 left-hander acquired in the deal that sent Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera to Detroit, to build a 4-0 lead.

“We’ve been a solid team, a together team ever since I’ve been here,” Randolph said. “These guys believe in each other. We go out and play and get after it. If you’re here with us, want to join the party, that’s great, we’ll invite you.”