What if it’s just Zack Wheeler’s turn to be the ace?

Will that suffice in this killer National League East?

We’ve seen stranger occurrences in baseball.

The Mets enjoyed one of their most satisfying victories of this young 2019 season, a 9-0 rout of the rival Phillies at Citi Field that gave Brodie Van Wagenen’s group sole occupancy of first place in their ultra-competitive division. At 13-10, they’ve opened this important homestand with two straight wins over Bryce Harper’s crew, which is threatening to self-destruct à la last year’s pre-Harper Phillies.

Harper, the $330 million man, followed Monday’s two-strikeout, one-ejection effort with two more K’s and a foul out to former Nationals teammate Wilson Ramos. If he found any coverage on this night, he could thank Wheeler, who fanned eight different Phillies batters a total of 11 times in seven shutout innings and, for hits and giggles, supported his own cause with his first career homer, a solo shot, plus a two-run double for a personal-best three RBIs.

“You want to put up zeroes every time,” Wheeler said. “When you’re facing anybody in your division, you want to put it to them and win these games because they’re big.”

“That’s probably one of the best games we’ve ever seen him throw,” Mickey Callaway said of his right-hander.

Wheeler lowered his season ERA to a still-undesirable 4.85, yet that primarily reflects his ghastly second work shift, April 7 at home against the Nationals, when he allowed seven runs and walked seven in 4⅔ innings. In his past three starts, he has tallied a 2.25 ERA over 20 innings, giving up five runs and 16 hits, walking six and striking out 24.

In short, the 28-year-old has started to present his case that he can sustain his memorable 2018 surge. And, in turn, that the impending free agent deserves an extension of his own.

Jacob deGrom, the most recent recipient of Mets money, resides on the injured list after his right elbow “barked” last week, though he intends to return with a start Friday night against the Brewers. He led not only the Mets but all of baseball last season with his brilliant campaign that netted him the NL Cy Young Award.

Noah Syndergaard, the Mets’ best pitcher in 2016, has struggled this season; he currently owns a 5.90 ERA.

DeGrom earned the ace title in 2015, although he worked with a virtual co-pilot in Matt Harvey, who you might have heard no longer pitches for the Mets.

It would be fitting for the Mets, a tribute to Sandy Alderson’s long-ago, only sporadically successful vision of a team driven by stud starting pitchers, if Wheeler took the reins this season, eight years after Alderson chose him as the return from the Giants for Carlos Beltran.

“Now that he’s been healthy, it’s about getting his mechanics synched up,” Callaway said. “When he does that, he’s electric and one of the best pitchers in baseball.”

Asked if he had returned to the pristine mechanics that drove his turnaround last year, Wheeler replied, “I’m very close.”

His offensive prowess on this night, meanwhile, made it what had to be a personal all-around best. With two outs in the second and runners on first and second, he ripped Zach Eflin’s first pitch into the right-field corner for a two-run double, breaking a scoreless tie. And in the fourth inning, he went opposite-field on another Eflin first pitch, sending it over the wall in left-center field for a 4-0 Mets advantage. With an exit velocity of 101.4 miles per hour, and having already shattered the 100-mph barrier as a pitcher this season, Wheeler became the first pitcher to join the “100/100 Club” this season.

“Pitching comes first,” Wheeler said. “But we work hard on our hitting and take pride in it. We want to go up there and do well as a staff.”

If he can lead that staff, be the guy to get Cy Young votes this year, that would be quite the tribute to this prodigal starting rotation.