WASHINGTON — It’s only supposed to be 101 degrees leading to first pitch tonight at Nationals Park — significantly less heat than the Mets already must feel as they attempt to keep their season from collapsing.
The Mets staggered into the All-Star break and then got swept three games in Atlanta over the weekend for four straight losses and five in six overall. The challenge now is to win a series against the NL Eastleading Nationals to reverse the freefall.
“It seems like we have a series like [Atlanta] and then we find a way to kind of get it turned around pretty quickly,” David Wright said, referring to the fact the Mets (4643) have fallen to three games above .500 on four other occasions since May 24, but each time rallied withawinning streak.
“But it’s not good coming out of the break. I think we had a couple of opportunities to win a [couple] of these games, but just couldn’t pull through, so Washington will be a good challenge for us.”
A starting rotation that carried the Mets over the first three months of the season is nowstruggling. Coaces R.A. Dickey and Johan Santana have each pitched consecutive duds and neither Jon Niese nor Chris Young has stepped up. Right-hander Dillon Gee’s season is likely over after surgery last week to repair an artery in his right shoulder.
The alarming number is the 8.87 ERA posted by Mets starting pitchers over the team’s last eight games, with a weak bullpen only exacerbating matters.
“We can’t keep being four and five and six runs behind trying to catch up,” manager Terry Collins said. “We don’t have that kind of power. It takes a lot of hits to catch up when you get that far behind.”
Pitching coach Dan Warthen senses his pitchers are just getting recalibrated after the All-Star break.
“You look around the league, you’re seeing a lot of six, eight, nine and 10 run games,” Warthen said. “It’s going to take probably a time around the rotation for almost everybody to get themselves back in form and it probably affects pitchersmore than it does hitters.
“All the way through baseball for the most part you’re seeing big scoring games, guys aren’t on their game, they aren’t locating like they possibly can.”
The Mets will miss facing Stephen Strasburg in this series — the righty fireballer pitched six shutout innings against the Marlins on Sunday — but still have to deal with Ross Detwiler, Jordan Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez. The Nationals’ team ERA of 3.13 entering last night was the best in the majors.
Wright said he is hardly surprised the Nationals have emerged as a powerhouse this season.
“You knew with their starting pitching they could go out there and dominate and that’s the name of the game — starting pitching,” Wright said.
“They have it and probably one through five it would be tough to put anybody in the National League up against them right now, the way their starters are pitching.”
mpuma@nypost.com