The Mets went into Friday night with three rookie starters lined up to face the Rangers in a big series at Citi Field.

Crazy, right?

“Crazy? Probably,” manager Carlos Mendoza said before Jonah Tong opened against former Mets ace Jacob deGrom.

The first inning of the first night of the gambit couldn’t have gone much worse, and the Mets lost their seventh in a row, 8-3, before 41,040.

Tong was gone after two-thirds of an inning with the Mets trailing 6-0.

Heading to the bottom of the first, all the Mets needed to do was score at least seven runs in a game started by deGrom. They did not, as deGrom (12-7, 2.82 ERA) allowed three runs in seven innings in his first start against the Mets since he signed with Texas as a free agent before the 2023 season.

The Mets honored him with a pregame

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