The latest Mets loss was a potpourri of problems

A 4-1 loss is nothing to bury your head in a pillow over. This was the score on Wednesday night when the New York Mets fell to the Washington Nationals. It’s their fourth straight loss and despite not putting up a goose egg, there are a lot of things to really hate about this one.

The NY Mets scored once and they almost didn’t even score at all

A leadoff triple by Eduardo Escobar in the third should’ve resulted in a lot more runs. Then a Tomas Nido bunt back to the pitcher almost killed the rally. It took a Starling Marte semi-bloop/line drive with two outs to score him. That was it. Half of the team’s hits and their only run may never have happened if the Nationals outfielders were a step or two closer.

NY Mets pitcher Kodai Senga had some of the same issues

Kodai Senga wasn’t brilliant. He wasn’t a dud either. The final line included 5 innings, 5 hits, 2 earned runs, 4 walks, and 7 strikeouts. It’s the kind of performance you’ll take. The abundance of walks, however, are becoming a trademark weakness of his.

The NY Mets used 3 of their best relievers in a losing effort

Brooks Raley, Adam Ottavino, and David Robertson all had trips to the mound on this one. It’s not a question of “why?” because managing those top relievers during a losing streak requires the manager to put them in games like this. You hate to have to waste even a single from these guys when a W isn’t the end result. It’s minor. It still stinks.

The NY Mets had almost as many errors as they had hits

The Mets went a long time this year without making an error. What was it, like two weeks? They made 3 in this one. Eduardo Escobar, Pete Alonso, and Adam Ottavino each made their first of the year. Pile this onto Luis Guillorme’s miscue a day earlier, it feels like the Mets are out-of-touch.

The NY Mets lineup got beat up by another young pitcher

MacKenzie Gore is supposedly going to be a pretty pitcher in the future. The future is apparently now. He struck out 10 Mets batters. The day before it was Josiah Gray who took care of business against New York. Both of these pitchers are likely to stay in D.C. for a couple of years. Gio Gonzalez must be helping them on the side. They’ve embarrassed the Mets.

Games against the Nationals need to be won. There are four on the schedule this weekend versus the Atlanta Braves and the Mets will now enter it well behind. At 14-11, nobody is waving the white flag. What fans can do is acknowledge how the good faith built up from the West Coast trip seems to have already dissipated.