Somehow, it went from bad to worse for Terry’s crew

SIXTH STRAIGHT LOSS DUMPS METS INTO NL EAST CELLAR YOENIS PULLS HAMMY, BOUND FOR LONG DL STAY

TO STEAL from Frank Barone of “Everybody Loves Raymond” fame, holy crap. If the Mets had put together any worse optics on Thursday, they would’ve been rated NC-17.

Where to begin with this train wreck of a team, now occupying last place in the National League East after its 7-5 loss to the Braves on Thursday afternoon at Citi Field? With the basics, I guess:

These Mets, 8-13 and losers of six straight and 10 of 11, are in real trouble. Banged up big time, mistakehappy up and down the organization and more low-energy than (possible) future Marlins owner Jeb Bush, they’re on the verge of digging themselves a very daunting hole. It’s statistically imperative for them to change their vibe and their playoff odds immediately, on this seven-game road swing through Washington and Atlanta that begins Friday night.

“We know it’s early,” Jose Reyes said. “But we don’t want to go too deep in the standings.”

The plummeting stock that is Reyes actually registered his best game of the season, slamming his first homer and adding an RBI single and a walk. Too bad for him that a series of unfortunate events conspired to render that a footnote.

In order of heart-rate-increase quotient:

1) Yoenis Cespedes, who missed last weekend to rest an ailing left hamstring, pulled up lame while running out a fourth-inning double and needed help getting off the field from trainer Ray Ramirez and firstbase coach Tom Goodwin. No telling yet precisely how long the Mets will be without their best player, but Terry Collins said, “He’s going to be out for a while.” Naturally, you wonder whether the Mets should have been more conservative with Cespedes and just put him on the 10-day disabled list in the first place. Actually, many of you did wonder; Ramirez was trending on Twitter.

2) The Mets scratched ace Noah Syndergaard from his start, citing right biceps tendinitis — Syndergaard hopes to pitch Sunday at Nationals Park — and notified Matt Harvey at 10 a.m. Thursday of their need for him to start one day earlier than scheduled. Why Harvey didn’t get any heads-up earlier in the week, when Syndergaard first experienced his discomfort, remains unknown. Harvey, saying afterwards that he felt “really tight,” registered his worst start of the season, allowing six runs in 4 ¹/₃ innings as he took his first loss. After the game, mean- while, Syndergaard whined when media approached him to ask if he had undergone any tests (he hadn’t) and scolded the Mets’ venerable vice president of media relations Jay Horwitz about the situation.

3) New third-base coach Glenn Sherlock made a terrible, no-outs send of Jay Bruce in the second inning, getting the lumbering slugger thrown out at home on a Neil Walker single to center field, and then he nearly ended the game when Curtis Granderson just avoided getting tagged in the ninth while scoring on a Reyes single.

4) Reyes made a questionable fielding decision in the second, throwing out former teammate R.A. Dickey at first instead of going home for a force out and therefore allowing a run to score. The outof-position Bruce made a fourthinning error at first base. Harvey, trying to get down a sacrifice bunt in the third, instead hit into a 3-6-4 double play. All together now: Yeesh. Collins held a postgame meeting in which he invoked the adversity last year’s team overcame to qualify for the postseason.

“We still made it through. We can do that again,” he said. “But it’s got to start now.”

In the last 14 days, the Mets have more team meetings (2) than victories (1); Collins offered a pep talk when the team left Miami after three straight terrible losses, and that begat the dreadful, 1-7 homestand. Make of that what you will.

He’s right about the starting-now part, though. Last year, two teams went 8-13 in April: The Yankees and the Brewers. Neither qualified for the playoffs. In 2015, the Nationals and Phillies began 8-13 and both went home in October, although the 2015 Rangers went 7-14 out of the gate and wound up winning the AL West at 88-74.

“You can have meetings. You can talk about trying,” Bruce said. “Winning games is the most important thing.”

It’s the best optic, the only salve to prevent a nightmarish first month from turning into one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history.