Three games. Three shutouts. Twenty-seven scoreless innings. Twenty-five very bewildered players.
“No matter how you lose, a loss is a loss,” said Phillies right fielder Jayson Werth. “It’s the crazy game of baseball.”
What’s really crazy is the first-place Phillies arriving at Citi Field three days ago and then leaving last night without having scored a single run. The Phils haven’t been victimized by three straight shutouts since 1983.
“Sometimes you eat the bear,” said manager Charlie Manuel, using the southern pronunciation “bar” for the critter, “and sometimes the bear eats you.”
And sometimes the Mets kick your butts.
With R.A. Dickey, Hisanori Takahashi and, last night, Mike Pelfrey doing much of the heavy lifting, the Mets extended the Phillies’ dreadful streak.
The Phils now have lost five straight (four by shutout) and seven of nine. In those nine games, they are hitting a combined .199 (56-of-282). In two other games among the nine, Philly exploded for one run.
After Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to the Mets, the Phils held a team meeting.
Guess it didn’t work.
“When things are going good, you don’t want to do anything differently, but when things are going bad, you try something . . . to shake things up,” said Shane Victorino, who had three of the Phils’ four hits last night. “You can only go north.”
Wanna bet?
Last night, every time they made any kind of noise early against Pelfrey who walked five, somebody rapped into a double play. Placido Polanco did it to end the third. Werth did it to end the fourth. Ditto Wilson Valdez ending the fifth.
“Game killers,” Manuel lamented.
As did all those zeroes on the board by the Phils, who dearly miss Jimmy Rollins (second DL stay) with his physical and intangible contributions.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Polanco, admitting, “it is getting to” some guys in their batting approach.
“But it’s not going to be like that for long? Tomorrow, we could score 20 runs.”
The offensive no-show wasted a solid effort by lefty Cole Hamels, who was driven from the game in the seventh by Jose Reyes’ two-run double.
“It happens every year for us, almost around the same time,” said Hamels — who, in 2008, said the Mets for two years were choke artists.
Two years later, the Mets can say, for three games, the Phils were invisible.
“It’s a matter of going out and not losing focus,” Hamels said. “I have a job to do. I can’t worry about the offense. We just need to believe in ourselves. We are a very good team.”
Going through some very bad times.
fred.kerber @nypost.com