Only five more moral victories stand between the Mets and the NL East title – as long as they can get the right combination of losses from the Phillies and Braves.
Real victories would be preferred, of course. Last night the Mets had a chance to grab a real victory in the ninth inning and extend their division lead by another game, only to hit a wall of frustration.
“Damn, it would have been nice if we got that win today,” Moises Alou said after the Mets scored six runs in the ninth, only to lose 10-9 to the Nationals at Shea Stadium.
With Endy Chavez standing at third base as the tying run, Jon Rauch got Paul Lo Duca on a lazy fly to right, ending the comeback dream.
The Phillies, with their 10-6 loss to the Braves, remained two games behind the Mets in the NL East.
It wasn’t enough that Jose Reyes slammed his second homer of the game, a three-run blast in the ninth, or that Alou’s fourth hit, a three-run double against Chad Cordero, pulled the Mets within a run.
What mattered was Carlos Delgado and Lo Duca had chances to bring home the tying run, but came up empty. Rauch struck out Delgado – Chavez, a pinch-runner for Alou, brazenly stole third base on the play – and Lo Duca, despite leading off the ninth with a single, couldn’t deliver.
“It’s just a loss, and it will be tough to sleep on this one,” Lo Duca said.
So it’s root, root, root for the Braves, who continue their series against in Philadelphia tonight.
“We’re obviously scuffling, so it helps that the Braves are playing good baseball,” David Wright said. “That being said, we have to play better.”
Tom Glavine sure picked a bad night to do a Guillermo Mota imitation. There was Glavine unloading pitch after pitch with the words “Tag Me” visible on the baseball, and the Nationals were more than happy to comply.
The first inning was a Glavine train wreck, and the hemorrhaging never really stopped. Struggling all night to find his changeup, Glavine (13-7) went five innings and allowed six earned runs on nine hits with four strikeouts and one walk, losing for the first time since July 2.
The three home runs Glavine allowed last night were a season high.
“It just kind of continues to keep us in that situation where we’re fighting to find consistency,” Glavine said.
National starter Jason Bergmann (6-5) had ample breathing room for most of the night. The right-hander went 52/3 innings and allowed three earned runs on seven hits with three walks and three strikeouts to win his fifth straight decision. It was the fifth time in six starts that Bergmann allowed three runs or fewer.
Alou wasted no time extending his hitting streak, reaching first on an infield single in his first at-bat, leading off the second inning. Alou, who finished 4-for-5, has hit in 29 straight games, the longest streak in the major leagues this season.
The Nationals came out swinging. Austin Kearns hit a three-run homer in the first before Tony Batista hit a solo shot later in the inning.
After the Mets scored twice to pull within 4-2, it started getting ugly again for Glavine. Wily Mo Pena delivered an RBI single in the third before Justin Maxwell homered leading off the fourth.
Reliever Jorge Sosa allowed a two-run single to Brian Schneider in the seventh that made it 8-3 before Aaron Sele allowed two runs over the final two innings.
With five hits and two walks in the ninth, the Mets got within a hit of tying. But to players such as Lo Duca, that meant nothing.
“We’ve got five games left and everybody is starting to creep up on us now,” he said, referring to the fact Atlanta is four games back. “So we’ve got to start playing [better].”
mpuma@nypost.com