When it comes to playing with the Pirates, Amazin’s arrrrrr no match

The Cheshire cat smile on Clint Hurdle’s face as he explained why he chose to rest some of his key regulars Sunday with a sweep of the Mets in the offing was the tipoff: This, in the mind of the Pirates manager, had all the elements of being one of those delightful (pardon the pun) reverse locks.

It did not matter to Hurdle that he was going into battle against Matt Harvey with Jeff Locke on the mound and Andrew McCutchen on the bench. “We’re playing good baseball,” Hurdle was saying before the game. “We’ve got nothing to lose.”

He was right. For, in the end, Harvey, who was only able to give Terry Collins six innings, was not a factor in the 8-1 sweep-completing Pirates’ win, and actually even less a factor than Locke, the softthrowing backof-the-rotation lefty who limited the Mets to one run and four hits over 5.1 innings. For the third straight game, the Mets — minus Lucas Duda — were pretty much stifled by Pirate pitching and their own vaunted starting pitching could not compensate for the hitters’ continued ineptitude. It is as if — at least against a good team like the Pirates — the trading deadline acquisitions of Yoenis Cespedes, Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson, along with the return to health of Travis d’Arnaud and Michael Cuddyer, changed nothing.

In his own pregame mediafest, Collins said he felt “very lucky” to

have a pitcher of Harvey’s pedigree — coming off a streak of brilliance in which he became the first Met pitcher in history to allow no walks and one run or less in three consecutive starts — on tap to take the brooms out of the Pirates’ hands.

In fact, the Mets’ starting pitching, dominant as it has been, is supposed to make them slumpproof. But as this Pirates series proved, they can only do so much, and after Harvey left, things really got ugly Sunday, with the hitters having no better success against the Pittsburgh bullpen, the defense breaking down and Bobby Parnell having another rocky relief outing. Perhaps what Collins should really be feeling “very lucky” about is that the Mets are not — at least for the time being — in the wild card race, where they would be trailing the Pirates and Cubs by 7½ and five games, respectively.

“All I know,” he said, “is if you told me on May 15 that with 44 games left in the season we’d have a 4½-game lead in first place, I’d take that.”

It’s only that way, however, because the Washington Nationals and their embattled manager, Matt Williams, are imploding before our eyes. On Sunday, their sixth straight loss incredibly put them one game under .500 at 5859, meaning, until further notice, they can no longer be considered one of the better teams in baseball. What should be concerning to Collins is that the Mets, for all their starting pitching, have yet to show they can beat some of those better teams who would be their prime competitors in a wild card race. Indeed, against the Pirates and Cubs, they finished 0-13.

In terms of playing winning teams in the playoff hunt, these next two games against the Orioles in Baltimore (who have suddenly moved to within only four games of first in the AL East) may prove more telling about the Mets than it previously may have seemed.

“I try not to think about (getting swept by the Pirates),” said d’Arnaud. “I prefer to look at it as we had a 4-3 home stand.”

At this juncture, with the Nationals in their tailspin, looks can be deceiving.

Just ask Hurdle.