Mets in nosedive as familiar woes bite again in lopsided loss to Phillies

PHILADELPHIA — The Mets’ wild-card position has not changed, but their trajectory has dramatically.

A team that had been meandering — certainly not cruising but at least making some progress as recently as last week — has transitioned into a full-on nosedive.

Wednesday’s 11-3 blowout at the Phillies’ hands was the Mets’ fifth straight loss and laid bare many of the problems plaguing the club at the moment: a helplessness against quality pitching, an inability for their veteran starting pitchers to deliver length (and often quality) and a post-trade-deadline bullpen that was hyped as super and been more standard.

But no matter how hard the Mets seem to be trying, they have been unable to lose much ground in the wild-card race.

A Giants defeat ensured Carlos Mendoza’s group remained in control of the final NL playoff spot by two games.

There is enough time — about two and a half weeks — for the Mets (76-70) to resume course, clinch a wild card and enter October with momentum.

But there is also little evidence that a turnaround will arrive for a team that was the best in baseball at 45-24 on June 12 and has spent the following three months often sleepwalking and recently flat-out collapsing, including during a series at Citizens Bank Park in which they have been pounded 21-6 before Thursday’s finale.

An offense that fired on all cylinders in August has backfired on all cylinders during this skid. After being mesmerized by Cristopher Sánchez’s sinker and changeup for six one-run, four-hit, six-strikeout innings, the Mets lineup has been throttled by four solid-to-excellent starting arms in a row. Hunter Greene, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez and Sánchez have held Juan Soto & Co. to three runs and 12 hits in 25 innings with 30 strikeouts.

With such silence against starting pitchers, games and hopes tend to end early, which again was the case Wednesday.

Clay Holmes’ nightmare, 29-pitch, two-run, two-hit-batsmen, no-hard-contact first inning put the Mets in an immediate two-run hole that never was threatened.

The Mets managed their first run in the fourth — when Soto doubled, moved to third on a Pete Alonso single and scored on a Starling Marte hit — but apart from a Soto bomb in the eighth and a meaningless score in the ninth, that was the last sign of life from a flat-lining attack.

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After a few quiet innings against Holmes, the Phillies awoke in the fifth. A J.T. Realmuto single and Brandon Marsh drive into the right field corner — a double that Soto was slow to get to and then booted — drove in one and knocked Holmes from the game.

Gregory Soto entered and allowed an RBI single to Max Kepler before imploding in the next inning.

A four-run, nine-batter sixth removed any trace of doubt. Two big Phillies rallies began not with their own power but with Mets imprecision, Soto drilling Harrison Bader, serving up a single to Kyle Schwarber and plunking Realmuto — the fourth Phillies batter who was hit by a pitch.

And then the damage arrived in the form of a Marsh RBI single and Kepler gapped, two-run single.

The rout was on, and the Mets have rarely looked more off.