HOUSTON — A game that featured 16 walks, three physical errors and several more mental, a costly outside-the-baselines call and countless mistakes ultimately led to one more Mets loss.
The second-longest game of the Mets’ season, at three hours and 32 minutes, also might have been their sloppiest and will rank among the most painful, in some cases literal.
The Mets had trouble baserunning.
They did not field well.
They could not locate their pitches and repeatedly were burned by their mistakes.
They stuck around in a game that doubled as a circus, but they wound up narrowly out-mistaking their opponents.
In a contest that neither team appeared to want, the Astros were the less-worse club Wednesday in a 10-8 Mets defeat at Minute Maid Park that finished off another series loss.
The Mets (34-40) dropped their 13th game in their past 17 and have gone six straight series without a series victory.
Signs of progress for a talented team repeatedly crop up — Max Scherzer’s brilliance Monday was a nice sign — but a step back always follows.
Retreating steps were everywhere you looked.
The Mets’ pitching staff, led by Tylor Megill, issued eight walks.
Pete Alonso running outside the baselines may have cost the club a few runs in the first inning.
Omar Narvaez’s catcher’s interference led to a run.
Amid all the gaffes, the Mets narrowly missed completing their third comeback of the game.
Down by a run in the sixth and seventh, they had two strong chances to tie the game.
In the sixth, Brett Baty smacked what would have been an RBI single to left, but Corey Julks made a great diving grab.
In the seventh, Brandon Nimmo led off with an opposite-field blast that missed being a home run by a couple of feet.
It bounced off the wall, and Nimmo was thrown out trying to stretch the long single into a double.
A few more mistakes extended the Astros’ lead.
In the seventh inning, Jeremy Pena drilled Josh Walker with a comebacker in the leg.
Walker scrambled for the ball and tried to flip to Alonso, the throw winding up in the home dugout.
Walker, whose status was not clear, was knocked out of the game.
Adam Ottavino entered with runners on second and third, and the Astros’ final run was scored fittingly.
Martin Maldonado laid down a sacrifice bunt, and Ottavino gloved it and flipped home — too high. Narvaez had to leap for the throw, and by the time he came down, Julks had scored.
The Mets, who had climbed back from deficits of 2-0 and 6-4, finally were too far buried.
