“If you can’t spot the sucker in your first half-hour at the table, then you are the sucker.” – Mike McDermott, “Rounders”

Remember what was supposed to be the low point? The seven-game losing streak, six in a row on the road in Milwaukee and Arizona. That left the Mets seven games under .500, nine back in the NL East.

Still, the Mets wanted to believe redemption was out there for this 2017 season. It wasn’t even Memorial Day, after all, and the Mets were returning home for seven games against the dreadful Angels and even-worse Padres before three in Pittsburgh against the reeling Pirates before seven more at home against the Brewers and Pirates.

Here was a 16-game gift handed the Mets, a schedule so soft you could spread it on toast. A stretch of games that a good team rampages through to reverse course on a season. This was going to be a catapult toward bigger and better and all that.

Except the half-hour expired and the Mets were exposed as the suckers. They were not a good team. They were as soft a spot on the schedule as they were anticipating others to be.

They went 8-8 in the 16 games, which, considering the competition, was half bad. The Mets are the same seven games under .500. But Memorial Day has come and gone and more than one-third of the 2017 season has been played, and the Mets are now 11 games out of first, eight out of a wild card.

Really, at this point, we would need Jim Mora to stand up and bellow: “Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs. You kidding me? Playoffs!” The Mets are closer to the last-place Phillies than to the first-place Nationals, and the Phillies are on pace to lose 105 games.

There is a generally horrendous National League to take advantage of, but the Mets are part of the horrendous portion of the NL — the suckers — until further notice.

They will want you to believe that further notice arrives this week, with Yoenis Cespedes, Seth Lugo and Steven Matz expected to be activated. Theoretically, this should help them score more and give up less, which would kind of benefit a squad that has been outscored by 29 runs.

“We’re not going to fold up the tent yet,” Terry Collins said.

But he also accentuated his surprise at how the Mets have pitched this year, even with injury. Their team ERA is 4.91, which is third-to-last in the majors and the second-worst in franchise history to — drum roll — the 1962 expansion Mets. Not long ago, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler were being compared to Seaver, Koosman and Gentry. Now, it is Roger Craig, Jay Hook and Al Jackson.

Mets starters have been unable to give enough quality innings, to control games, and that has overburdened an untrustworthy bullpen. Consider the wonderful symbiotic relationship between rotation and relievers when the 2015 Mets went 56-7 (.889) when they scored five or more runs or 54-9 (.857) last year — those were the second-best winning percentages in the majors in both of those seasons. This year, they already have eight losses when scoring at least five runs, and their .704 winning percentage (17-8) is the majors’ eighth-worst.

Thus, rather than going mano a mano with the Nationals, the Mets ended the weekend with the same record as the Marlins. And, really, what are the Mets’ rotation problems compared to Miami’s? The Marlins’ ace, Jose Fernandez, died last September, three of their starters are on the DL and another, Adam Conley, is back at Triple-A after posting a 7.53 ERA.

The Mets never imagined they would be in a similar locale as the Marlins — just 4½ games from the majors’ worst record. But the half-hour of this season is up and, to date, the Mets are the suckers.