“You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’ ”

— Casey Stengel, 1962.

Pity the poor Mets fan: We’ve had some great moments over the years, but Casey’s plea never seems to leave us.

Wednesday’s game would have embarrassed a Little Leaguer: Asdrubal Cabrera’s first-inning double was erased, and Jay Bruce called out without swinging the bat, because Cabrera and Wilmer Flores had batted in the wrong order. The Mets lost a key scoring opportunity, wasted a fine outing by Zack Wheeler, and ended up losing a 1-run game in extra innings, all because nobody could read a lineup card.

Finding creative ways to crush our souls is nothing new for the Amazin’s. It starts with false hope: a new manager, a stable of healthy arms, a roaring 12-2 start. Hope is the worst. You thought you learned your lesson last year, but nothing sucks you back in like hope. Two weeks ago, I was counting down the magic number to a playoff spot. Now, they’re in fourth place and barely clinging to .500.

The first season I can really remember following the Mets was 1977, when they traded “The Franchise,” Tom Seaver, after Daily News columnist Dick Young goaded Seaver into demanding a trade. That kicked off seven years in the wilderness.

But at least those teams were just bad; later generations of Mets fans have been baptized with agonizing September and October collapses (1987-88, 2006-08), disastrous and anti-social big-money free-agent signings, generations of injuries to stellar pitching prospects (from the mid-1990s “Generation K” to the current rotation), mid-career departures and flameouts by the franchise’s best talents.

And one ridiculous way after another to lose a baseball game.

This year, the one reason to have real hope was a healthy rotation: Syndergaard, deGrom, Harvey, Wheeler and Matz made a full turn together for the first time. It didn’t last. Now, deGrom is on the disabled list, and Harvey and his late-night party antics have been banished to the same lowly Cincinnati Reds who just beat the Mets at reading comprehension.

So much for hope.

The worst part of being a Mets fan is sharing a city with the Yankees, who breeze through one decade after another with few of these heartbreaks and humiliations. No other pro sports franchise is faced daily with such an unflattering local contrast.

Crippling back injuries have stalled David Wright, the team’s best homegrown hitter in 56 years, at 1,777 hits and 970 RBI; Darryl Strawberry topped out at 252 home runs.

The 10th-place figures on the Yankees’ team leaders are 1,866 hits, 1,099 RBI, and 250 homers. Just once, Mets fans wanted a no-hitter (more ex-Mets have thrown no-hitters as Yankees), and the one guy who finally did, Johan Santana, saw his shoulder unravel for good a few weeks later.

Players who struggle or fail in Queens thrive elsewhere, sometimes even returning to fail again. Managers, too: Casey Stengel had played on a pennant-winning team with the Brooklyn Dodgers and a World Championship team with the New York Giants, and managed the Yankees to five straight World Series victories, but his expansion Mets never won more than a third of their games. Joe Torre won four championships and six pennants with the Yankees; as Mets manager, he never finished higher than fifth. Willie Randolph, a champion in The Bronx, was fired on the first day of a West Coast road trip when he managed the Mets.

Our mascot, Mr. Met, got fired for flipping the bird. And Mr. Met doesn’t even have five fingers!

Teams in big cities can at least hope that sooner or later, their money will allow them to get their act together. Teams in smaller markets can take comfort in being David vs. Goliath. But the Mets, playing in the biggest market of all, are still financially hamstrung a decade later by a hangover of debt from investing with Bernie Madoff. Can’t anybody here play this game?

Oh, well. It has to get better, right? We can always hope.

Dan McLaughlin is an attorney practicing securities and commercial litigation in New York City, and a contributing columnist at National Review Online. Twitter: @baseballcrank