NEW YORK _ The two worst teams in the National League played a game Monday night.
One of them had the best pitcher currently throwing a baseball, and for four innings it didn't seem much could be done to make it anything more than a one-man show.
Then that good pitcher's bad team played down to its station, and the other bad team made just enough adjustments to win.
Yes, the Padres beat Jacob deGrom and the Mets, 3-2, at Citi Field.
The Padres' .408 winning percentage remains worst in the NL. The Mets' 40 victories remain the NL's fewest.
That means Tuesday will be another battle of the bads.
Minus deGrom.
The Padres' comeback from a 1-0 deficit _ and basically from the dead _ was helped by increased patience at the plate and aggressiveness on the bases.
But the Padres got their spark when Mets right fielder Jose Bautista had Christian Villanueva's routine fly ball bounce off his glove with one out in the fifth inning.
To that point, deGrom had thrown 43 pitches
Villanueva stole second and scored on Freddy Galvis' single, which was followed by Manuel Margot's triple off the bottom of the wall in center field to put the Padres up 2-1.
The Padres got deGrom to throw 29 pitches in the fifth but left the bases loaded without adding on before getting a run in the sixth when Wil Myers' doubled and scored on a grounder by Eric Hosmer that skipped under the glove of Mets shortstop Amed Rosario.
After allowing the three runs, two of them earned, deGrom's ERA rose three-hundredths of a point to 1.71, still the lowest in the majors. He struck out 10 in going eighth innings for the third straight start and the fifth time in eight starts.
The Padres were first team to score more than a run off deGrom (5-5) in three starts.
Padres rookie Joey Lucchesi, recalled from Triple-A on Monday after a tune-up start over the All-Star break, allowed two runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings. Lucchesi (5-5) was replaced by Craig Stammen with runners at the corners in the sixth, having allowed two one-out singles. The lead runner scored on a dribbler off the end of Jose Reyes' bat.
Stammen pitched a scoreless seventh and Phil Maton a perfect eighth before Kirby Yates earned his third save of the season _ and first since closer Brad Hand was traded on Thursday.
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