Trevor Williams gets roughed in loss as Mets’ NL East lead shrinks

The Rangers’ bats were loud early, and the Mets’ were quiet late and, notably, when it most mattered.

Trevor Williams buried his team in a hole it never climbed out of, and the Mets’ situational hitting failed them again in a 7-3 loss to Texas in front of 26,494 at Citi Field on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

The Mets (48-30) have lost four of their past five ahead of the rubber match against the Rangers on Sunday. The Braves won again, so the Mets’ NL East lead has been trimmed to just 2 ¹/₂ games, the closest the division has been since April 30.

The Rangers’ four home runs, including three in the first four innings — two of them from right fielder Kole Calhoun — were enough to sink the Mets, who were held scoreless after the fourth inning and finished 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

During the past five games, the Mets — who have flourished for much of the season in critical moments, riding big hits to big rallies — have gone 4-for-39 (.103) with runners in scoring position.

“We haven’t been able to string together a lot of things,” manager Buck Showalter said of his club, which has scored 10 total runs in the past five games. “We create some opportunities but don’t cash in on them. But then we [did] hit four balls on the button today that they defended.”

If the offense is not there, the Mets must rely upon a pitching staff that, if healthy, can carry a heavier load. On the same day the Mets officially announced Jacob deGrom’s rehab assignment would begin Sunday (two days before Max Scherzer’s scheduled return to the major league rotation), Williams, a typically reliable fill-in, underscored the need for the co-aces to come back.

Williams has pitched well as a swingman this season, but he gave up back-to-back homers in the second inning to Calhoun and Jonah Heim that traveled an estimated 792 feet combined.

The Mets had jumped out in front in the first inning on Starling Marte’s eighth homer of the season, a two-run shot. But they went from a two-run edge to a two-run hole that proved insurmountable.

“A few misexecuted pitches that wound up hurting in the end,” said Williams, who was pitching on three days rest for a rotation that is missing Scherzer, deGrom, Tylor Megill and now David Peterson, who left to be with his wife, who’s expecting their child any day now. “The three-run homer [to Calhoun] was the dagger.”

Williams lasted just 3 ²/₃ innings, in which he finished with as many strikeouts (three) as home runs allowed. Each of the five runs with which he was charged came from the long ball, the last of them a second homer by Calhoun.

After Williams was removed, the Mets’ bullpen gave the offense a chance to strike — yet another chance that was wasted.

The Mets scored just one run after the first inning, on an Eduardo Escobar home run in the fourth that made it 5-3. They got no closer.

Their best subsequent threat arrived in the bottom of the fifth, when Marte singled ahead of Francisco Lindor’s walk, bringing Pete Alonso and excitement to the plate. But while the slugger hit the ball hard, it went right to shortstop Corey Seager, who started an inning-ending double play.

Alonso had another chance in the eighth inning, after Lindor had reached second without an out, but he swung through strike three. Lindor was one of seven left stranded.

What has gone wrong for the Mets’ timely bats?

“Baseball,” Lindor said when asked how a team that had thrived in the clutch has frozen up. “The ups and the downs of baseball. It’s that time of the year for us. We’re all grinding, we’re all trying, we’re all giving our best.”

The Rangers tacked on single runs in the eighth and ninth off Tommy Hunter. Seager poked a single against the shift to plate one, while Leody Taveras’ homer represented the final run of the game.

There are games in which the Mets can ride a 2-0 lead in the first inning to a victory without much drama. But those days are far more frequent when deGrom or Scherzer is on the mound.

The Mets’ big pitchers are projected to be back soon. Will the big hits return, too?