Struggling Mets look to get on track vs. Nationals

The baseball trade deadline season began in earnest on Wednesday, when the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels made trades to bolster their rosters for the stretch drive.

Beginning Thursday, the New York Mets get one more series to decide whether they will be buyers or sellers.

The Mets will look to mount a timely winning streak on Thursday night when they host the Washington Nationals in the opener of a four-game series.

Kodai Senga (7-5, 3.27 ERA) is slated to start for the Mets against Josiah Gray (7-8, 3.45 ERA) in a battle of All-Star right-handers.

The Mets missed a chance to sweep a two-game interleague series when they fell 3-1 to the host New York Yankees on Wednesday night. The Nationals scored four runs in the ninth inning on Wednesday afternoon to earn a 5-4, walk-off win over the visiting Colorado Rockies in the rubber game of a three-game set.

The Mets sit 7 1/2 games behind the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds, who are tied for the last two of the three NL wild-card spots.

The defeat in the Bronx continued a pattern of inconsistency for the Mets, who opened July with a season-best, six-game winning streak but have gone 5-8 since then. New York has won just one of its past five series.

Such up-and-down play has made it difficult for the Mets -- who won 101 games last year and opened this season with a major-league-record $364 million payroll -- to determine how to operate at the deadline. Pitchers Carlos Carrasco and David Robertson and outfielders Mark Canha and Tommy Pham are all impending free agents who could be of interest to other teams as rentals.

"It's been tough like this all year," Mets utility man Jeff McNeil said. "We've just got to put it all together for a while, We're not in the best spot right now, so we need to play good baseball and do it quick."

There probably is not much the last-place Nationals can do to avoid being sellers at the deadline for a third straight season. However, a second straight win in its last at-bat provided more signs Washington is closer to emerging from its lengthy post-2019 championship rebuild.

The Nationals, who scored four runs in the eighth inning of a 6-5 victory against Colorado on Tuesday, were limited to an unearned run on three hits over the first eight frames on Wednesday before rallying. Washington scored runs in the ninth via a bases-loaded hit by pitch, a bases-loaded walk and an RBI groundout before CJ Abrams laced the game-winning single.

The victory was the fifth in six games for the Nationals, who swept the San Francisco Giants by a combined 21-5 before hosting the Rockies.

"Most definitely we show heart as a team," Abrams said. "It's never over until it's over, so we're going to keep fighting until it is."

Senga didn't factor into the decision on Friday, when he gave up three runs (two earned) over 3 1/3 innings against the Boston Red Sox before rain cut short his outing in a game the Mets eventually won 5-4.

Senga lost his lone career start against the Nationals on April 26, when he allowed two runs over five innings in Washington's 4-1 victory.

Gray earned a win on Saturday after allowing one run over seven innings as the Nationals beat the Giants 10-1. He is 1-2 with an 8.00 ERA in four career starts against the Mets. Gray beat New York April 25, when he fired six shutout innings and struck out a season-high nine batters.