NOT IN TIME! Mets catcher Rob Johnson does not get the ball in time to tag out Phillies baserunner Juan Pierre, scoring the go-ahead run in the eighth inning off a sacrifice fly by Shane Victorino to take a 4-3 lead. (Getty Images)
Dillon Gee outdueled Cliff Lee, but he was the only pitcher who could get the Phillies out last night.
The right-hander was undone by shoddy relief work, as the Mets’ bullpen gave up eight runs in a 10-6 loss at Citi Field.
One out away from finishing the seventh, Gee gave up a double to Brian Schneider, who belted it over a stumbling Andres Torres.
The hit forced Gee from the game, as Terry Collins brought in Bobby Parnell to face pinch-hitter Carlos Ruiz. The move did not pan out, as Ruiz hit a game-tying, two-run homer on a 1-1 curve from Parnell.
“I’ve been throwing good curveballs and unfortunately I hung that one,” Parnell said. “It’s not fun. … The ballgame didn’t go our way and maybe that was the turning point. I hate that, but I’ve got to shake that off.”
Collins said that was the matchup he wanted and still, as much as the homer hurt the Mets’ chances, the manager made it clear the game was hardly lost with that pitch.
“We had to stop them after that,” Collins said. “That tied it. We let it get away. We’ve got to stop them the next inning.”
That didn’t happen — at all.
Instead, with the Mets playing their 20th game in as many days, the bullpen imploded.
Jon Rauch (3-4) gave up a run in the eighth when Shane Victorino drove in Juan Pierre to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead, and the rest of Collins’ bullpen fell apart. In all, they gave up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings.
“When you’re facing a tough guy to start off the game and then to not be able to come in and do the job late, it’s heartbreaking,” Rauch said of the Mets blowing a chance to beat Lee, who is winless in his eight starts this season despite a 3.00 ERA.
The Phillies scored six in the ninth, the big blow a three-run homer by Jimmy Rollins off Ramon Ramirez. Antonio Bastardo pitched a scoreless seventh inning to improve to 2-1.
Lucas Duda gave the Mets a 3-1 lead in the sixth, with a two-run shot off a Lee two-seamer. It was Duda’s first career homer off a left-hander and came after he snapped an 0-for-16 slide with a fourth-inning single.
He added another homer in the ninth — his seventh of the season — when the Mets scored three times in a belated comeback attempt.
Though Gee was effective for a third straight start, he regretted not being able to get through the seventh.
“I was thinking right there, ‘I just want to finish the inning,’ ” Gee said. “Everyone has ups and downs, and tonight was just a down night for the bullpen.”
But Collins absolved Gee, who had given up a second-inning home run to Ty Wigginton, but avoided trouble most of the rest of the night.
“Ruiz was the one at-bat we had to get,” Collins said.
The Mets went up 1-0 in the first when Daniel Murphy ran through third-base coach Tim Teufel’s stop sign on David Wright’s double to center and slid in under Schneider’s tag.
Gee gave the lead right back in the second, when Wigginton hit his homer. Wigginton now has 11 RBIs in seven games this season against his old team.
But last night, it was its bullpen that did them in.
dan.martin@nypost.com