I don’t have enough energy to come up with an interesting headline. The Mets lost again.

On the first day of this awful month, the Mets completed a three-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies. That was the last time this awful team has won a series. That awful streak has not ended today, as the Mets lost an awful game against the Astros due to the same awful pitching and mental mistakes that have plagued this team for the past several awful weeks. It was, if I had to choose one word to describe it, awful.

I’m not going to give a painstakingly detailed account of every inning because almost all of them were loaded with disasters and I just don’t have that kind of mental bandwidth. But it’s worth paying attention to the first inning, because the Mets established exactly what kind of game we’d be getting right there. After loading the bases on two walks and a hit-by-pitch against Astros starter Christian Javier, Pete Alonso hit a check swing dribbler back to Javier; Javier threw home to get the out at home, and then Martin Maldanado threw the ball past the first base line, but Alosno was called out for running out of the baseline. This cursed double play basically ended the threat, as even with yet another walk to once more load the bases, Jeff McNeil popped out in the infield to conclude the top of the first. In the bottom of the frame, meanwhile, we saw—after a one-out double from Mauricio Dubon—a catcher’s interference and two wild pitches from Tylor Megill to score the first run of the game, and an Alex Bregman RBI single made it 2-0 Astros. An inning-ending double play is the only thing which kept this awful first inning from being even worse.

The offense at least kept the Mets in the game. In the second inning, Starling Marte swung at a ball that was a foot away from bouncing in the dirt and somehow lined it into left for a two-run double to tie the game, and over the next two innings they scored two more runs (one on a double in the third inning by Daniel Vogelbach, who had another solid day at the plate) to take a 4-2 lead. But we’ve seen plenty of games in the past few weeks where the Mets offense kept on scoring runs and the pitching staff kept on giving them up, and that was what we were in store for today. Megill—who, after a rare game in which he did not give up any walks, issued four free passes in 2.1 innings of work today—gave up the lead in the third inning on a two-run single to Corey Julks, and after being taken out of the game for Dominic Leone, Chas McCormick hit a two-run homer to give the Astros a 6-4 lead.

The Mets tied it up again when Vogelbach got yet another big hit, singling in two runs with the bases loaded in the fourth. Then in the bottom of the inning, they fell back behind when Leone gave up two more runs—including on yet another home run. Again, if it feels like I could be describing three or four different Mets games from the past few weeks right now—well, that’s certainly how it felt watching this train wreck.

This game also had plenty of the “Oh, COME ON!” moments that seemed to have followed this team around over the past few weeks. After the Mets got it back to within one run in the sixth inning thanks to a two-run homer by Alonso and got the tying run in scoring position, Brett Baty hit a screaming line drive to left field that would have tied the game if not for a diving catch by Corey Julks to end the frame. In the next inning, Brandon Nimmo hit a line drive to left field that just barely missed going over the fence—and then got thrown out at second base. Then in the bottom of the seventh, the Astros once again added to their lead on some more mental errors by the Mets. With a runner on first, Josh Walker attempted to field a ball that hit him and bounced towards first base. He foolishly tried to scoop it to first despite having no change of getting the runner out, and the ball went past Alonso into the dugout to put runners on second and third. Walker left the game due to injury, and Adam Ottavino came on to handle the mess. Maldanado then hit a safety squeeze, and while Ottavino had plenty of time to field the ball, his shovel pass to home was too high, and the Astros got yet another run to make it 10-8.

The last couple of innings went by quietly, as the Mets didn’t have any more bullets in their offensive gun. So... I don’t know, man. Another bad game. Another bad series. Seems like the team is bad! They’ll have a day off tomorrow and then will resume trying to not be bad against the Phillies in Philadelphia. Whatever.

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Starling Marte, +28.7 WPA
Big Mets loser: Dominic Leone, -47.6% WPA
Mets pitchers: -81.6% WPA
Mets hitters: +31.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Daniel Vogelbach two-run single in the fourth, +20.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Chas McCormick two-run homer in the third, -21.0% WPA