WASHINGTON — Unless manager Terry Collins told the Mets to continue bumbling through July, there were no tangible results from the team meeting he held yesterday.
They finally are receiving solid starting pitching again after a brutal eight-game stretch, but as far as everything else with the Mets, forget about it.
Where this freefall stops nobody knows, as the Mets’ longest losing streak of the season reached six games with a 4-3 loss to the surging Nationals.
Just don’t tell Miguel Batista.
“Right now [the Nationals] are playing good baseball, but I don’t think they are better than us,” Batista said after allowing two runs in the seventh, his one inning of work. “I haven’t seen a team better than us. I believe we are the best team in baseball. We just have to play like one.”
Maybe the right-hander bought into Collins’ pregame talk, which one clubhouse source described as upbeat, without any anger. Collins also touched on accountability — he was unhappy with a comment reliever Pedro Beato made a night earlier after uncorking a wild pitch in the 10th inning that allowed the Nationals to score the winning run in a 5-4 loss.
“One of the things I’ve thought that has been a key here is we’ve had a great clubhouse,” Collins said. “When things aren’t going well you can have some issues in there and we addressed them today.”
On Tuesday, Beato seemed to imply that catcher Josh Thole should have blocked his wild pitch. But the righty said his comment was misinterpreted.
“What I said was that I tried to throw the ball on the ground and I yanked the ball,” Beato said. “It should have been a better pitch than that and it’s very unfortunate that Thole didn’t block it, but we spoke about it in house and squashed it and it was clear it wasn’t exactly as written. I didn’t finger point anybody. I should have made a better pitch.”
David Wright and Jason Bay each hit solo homers in the ninth against Tyler Clippard last night, but the right-hander struck out pinch hitter Jordany Valdespin with two outs to end the comeback dream.
The Mets (46-45) fell to one game above .500 for the first time since May 5 and slipped eight games behind the first-place Nationals.
Chris Young (2-4) rebounded from his worst start of the season by allowing two earned runs on six hits over six innings with two strikeouts and a walk. The right-hander had allowed five earned runs over three innings in a loss to the Braves last Friday.
“There is no satisfaction tonight,” said Young, who couldn’t keep pace with Jordan Zimmermann’s six shutout innings. “We lost the game and we needed to win.”
Steve Lombardozzi’s two-run double in the seventh extended the Nationals’ lead to 4-1 — just the latest slip by the Mets bullpen. Roger Bernadina hit a line-drive single off Batista’s left leg, prompting an injury visit to the mound from Collins. Batista, who is scheduled to start Saturday against the Dodgers, remained in the game and surrendered the two-run double to Lombardozzi. Batista later said Bernadina’s shot only grazed him and he is fine.
Adam LaRoche’s two-run homer in the sixth produced the game’s first runs. Young might have taken his shutout to the seventh, except that Ruben Tejada had trouble gripping Bryce Harper’s chopper, reaching twice in his glove, allowing the rookie to reach first. With two outs, LaRoche unloaded for his 16th homer of the season.
“This team has a lot of character and we’re not going to quit,” Young said. “We’re not going to go away.”
mpuma@nypost.com