There was a moment on Sunday afternoon when it looked like everything would be OK.
Ike Davis doubled home Lucas Duda to tie the Yankees with nobody out in the top of the ninth inning, rallying from a two-inning fold that took the Mets from being up 3-0 to being down 4-3 and causing Yankee Stadium's orange and blue-clad denizens to raise their voices.
The Mets were in position to salvage a win from the first weekend of the Subway Series and Davis, the team's offensively-lost first baseman, was at the center of the action.
Losing two of three to the Yankees is never ideal, but you could live with an ending that included a blown save for Rafael Soriano and a sign of life from Davis. You can fasten your hope to wins like that, but the Mets never gave anyone the chance.
Davis broke for third on contact when Omar Quintanilla grounded to short and got himself gunned down easily on the play. Another single gave the Mets runners on the corners, but Josh Thole struck out on a called third strike (a little low, but you probably get that this wasn't the Mets' day by now) and Kirk Nieuwenhuis grounded out to second to set the stage for the inevitable.
That would be Russell Martin's walk-off homer off of Jon Rauch, a fitting end to a brutal Sunday for the Mets. The scrappy Mets of 2012 were mostly absent, replaced by the sloppy ones of the previous three years and, unlike a coffee commercial, you could definitely notice the difference.
There was brutal baserunning before Davis' blunder as two different Mets were picked off first base by Andy Pettitte. Pettitte was gone for a year, not long enough for anyone to forget that he's blessed with one of the best pickoff moves in history.
Defense was horrific, as errors by David Wright and Omar Quintanilla led to the runs in the seventh and eighth that put the Yankees in the lead. The final run of the eighth scored on a flare by Alex Rodriguez that dropped in because the Mets don't cover nearly enough ground in the field.
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And then, finally, came Bobby Parnell (four hits, two runs, no outs in the eighth) and Rauch to hand the sweep to the home team. One way or another, the Mets squandered every opportunity and each one of them was done in a way designed to inflict maximum pain while inflaming maximum doubt about where this team is going this season.
That was just Sunday. It's not like anything else that happened this weekend made you feel the other way.
Johan Santana pitched batting practice on Friday, leading to another emotionally wrought Terry Collins meeting with the media so he could fall on his sword for giving Santana an extra day of rest after the no-hitter.
Collins didn't have this kind of touchy-feely reputation when he got to town and it feels like watching a rageaholic in recovery when you watch him in situations like Friday as he tries not to blow his top.
Two more homers on Saturday meant another loss and more than a few heckles from Mets fans about the ease with which the ball leaves Yankees Stadium. A worthy critique, but you can't call a place too generous with homers when you can't hit any of them yourself.
And, if all that wasn't enough to leave you wondering why you bothered to start caring enough about this Mets team just before they drove the dagger into your heart, the Nationals swept the Red Sox and opened up a 4.5-game lead in the NL East. The Mets were tied for first when they woke up last Monday, in case you somehow forgot that piece of the puzzle.
Bad week, horrific weekend and a familiar feeling that the bottom is going to just drop out of this thing before too much longer. Mets fans have experience with such developments, not that it makes it any easier to deal with them.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.
