Mets demolished by Phillies, fall out of first in NL East in latest implosion as skid hits seven

PHILADELPHIA — By the time a nightmarish seventh inning had ended, the Phillies had scored six runs and broken open what had been a tie game.

Those kinds of implosions are a bigger-than-usual problem for the Mets given that they have scored seven total runs in their past five games.

The way the Mets’ offense is going, the team needs brilliance from its pitching staff — and a worn-out bullpen instead was blasted in the game-changing frame.

The Mets wasted competence from call-up starter Blade Tidwell and were rolled yet again by an NL East foe in a 10-2, series-opening demolition by the Phillies at a sold-out Citizens Bank Park on Friday night.

For the first time since May 30, the Mets (45-31) do not have a share of the division lead, leapfrogged by Philadelphia (46-30).

The season-worst seventh loss in a row was just about clinched in a 10-batter, five-hit, two-walk seventh in which Reed Garrett (charged with four runs without recording an out) and Justin Garza (two runs) were smacked around.

Brandon Marsh, who had sliced a double down the left-field line, scored on a double from Trea Turner that gave the Phillies a lead that wouldn’t be threatened.

After a Kyle Schwarber walk, Alec Bohm inside-outed an RBI single to right, and a lackadaisical throw from Juan Soto combined with a poor throw across the diamond from Pete Alonso allowed Schwarber to reach third.

Garza entered and let up two hits — a poked RBI single from Nick Castellanos and a skied double to Bryson Stott that bounced off the center-field wall at an angle that Tyrone Taylor was not prepared for.

Brandon Nimmo instead retrieved the ball and started a relay that ended with Castellanos and J.T. Realmuto sliding home within a second of each other, both beating a tag from Luis Torrens.

The Phillies padded the lead with a two-run shot by Castellanos in the eighth, but extra runs qualify as overkill against Mets bats right now.

Over the Mets’ past 16 innings, they have scored in one frame.

Alonso and Jeff McNeil launched back-to-back, solo homers to tie the game in the sixth against former Met Taijuan Walker — they were glad they had chased Zack Wheeler after five scoreless — but that was the end of their scoring.

Over the first five innings, the Mets left five on base and continued a trend that has seen them become the NL’s worst team in the clutch.

The frustration was immediately apparent, as they loaded the bases in the first — a Nimmo single, Soto walk and Alonso walk — before McNeil continued the Mets’ inability with runners in scoring position by grounding into a double play.

Jared Young got nowhere after lining a leadoff single in the second.

Nimmo crushed a two-out double in the fifth and was left on second base when Soto struck out.

The Mets received enough — neither excellence nor misery — from spot starter Tidwell, who looked better in his second career outing.

Tidwell held the Phillies scoreless for three innings before running into trouble in a fourth inning he would not survive.

He loaded the bases — on singles from Castellanos and Realmuto and a walk to Stott — with one out before inducing the ground ball he sought: Otto Kemp hit a high chopper to third baseman Brett Baty, who elected to go to second base and only got one out that allowed the Phillies to score the game’s first run.