If you want to stay in the NL East race, this is not how to do it.
First, you don’t blow a three-run lead to the worst team in the National League.
And if you do, you don’t allow them to run roughshod over you to score the go-ahead run in the eighth inning.
Oh — and then you don’t run yourselves out of an inning in the ninth.
But that’s just what the Mets did Saturday night in a 4-3 loss to the lowly Braves at Citi Field, as Ender Inciarte’s hustle in the eighth allowed him to get to third and then come home with what proved to be the winning run.