WASHINGTON — Brandon Nimmo’s neck would not allow him to look up.
After the game was over, he was intentional with his head movements while talking to reporters.
Luis Torrens sported a left hand that was wrapped in a ball after succumbing to a bat.
Kodai Senga was not injured, but he was battered on the mound.
It all added up to a painful loss for the Mets, who dug a hole from which they never quite escaped in a 5-4 contest at Nationals Park on Wednesday, snapping a three-game winning streak and falling 6 ½ games back of the Phillies in the division.
Less a heartbreaker and more a (literal) pain in the neck, the Mets (67-59) tried to fight back from 4-0 and 5-1 deficits but could not finish the job — and did not have Nimmo around to help out.
The left fielder was pulled in the bottom of the second after his neck acted up again and bothered him both while he was running and hitting.
A problem that “I think that I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my career,” Nimmo said, began in 2019 with a bulging disc and whiplash from a crash into a wall and flares up occasionally, as it did in May.
He was not overly concerned about a lengthy absence but said with treatment, the neck issue resolves over a few days — which likely will make for a brief and poorly timed absence.
The Mets are amid a playoff hunt and already have lost Francisco Alvarez for at least a couple of weeks.
Alvarez’s replacement, Torrens, was on the receiving end of a hard cut from Washington’s Drew Millas for a catcher’s interference call and what he called a “shock” to his hand that paused the game for a few minutes. It provided one more thing for the club to worry about, though Torrens shrugged off any concern.
There might be more concern for Senga, who has not been the same pitcher since returning from the injured list in July. After this five-plus inning, five-run (four earned) performance, he owns a 6.00 ERA while recording two outs in the sixth inning in his past six starts.
- CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND METS STATS
“He just left … a couple pitches middle-middle,” said manager Carlos Mendoza, who was pleased with Senga’s overall stuff. “Especially when he’s ahead. Today he left pitches right down the middle and they made him pay.”
After scoring two soft runs in the third, the Nationals scored three hard runs off Senga in the fourth and fifth with a home run, two doubles and a triple.
“I was able to attack the zone well, but I just couldn’t finish them off,” Senga, who recorded strike one on 16 of 24 hitters and walked two, said through interpreter Hiro Fujiwara.
The Mets offense responded but not loudly enough.
Brett Baty demolished a home run — 455 feet into the second deck in right for his longest career dinger — in the fifth before the offense came together in a nine-batter, three-run sixth.
After Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto walked, Pete Alonso flung an RBI double down the right field line. Jeff McNeil remained hot and scored two more with a double into the left field corner to bring the Mets within one.
They could not get over the hump, though, loading the bases with one out before Cedric Mullins’ fly out was too shallow to score a run and Torrens grounded out sharply.
What looked like the start of a comeback was just a tease. Washington’s unremarkable bullpen faced the minimum over the final three innings, ruining a game that Mendoza clearly wanted — the manager going to Tyler Rogers, Gregory Soto and Reed Garrett for three scoreless innings that kept the team within range.
“[The relievers] came in and kept us off balance, and we didn’t create any traffic,” Mendoza said. “They shut us down after that.”