Perhaps these seven games against the best the division can offer will be revealing. 

The Mets hope the first game wasn’t. 

Carlos Mendoza’s group started what could be a telling week against a couple of contenders by not yet looking quite like one in a 4-2 loss to the Braves in front of 23,355 at Citi Field on Friday. 

One quiet night from their offense and one poor four-batter stretch from Jose Quintana ensured the Mets (18-19) have begun a three-game series with the Braves, which will be followed by four against the best-in-baseball Phillies, on the wrong foot. 

The Mets’ offense was not good enough to beat a legitimate National League threat, finishing with four hits and just two runs on a seventh-inning solo shot from Francisco Lindor and an RBI single from Pete Alonso in the ninth. 

Alonso’s hit allowed the Mets to get the tying run to the plate against Raisel Iglesias, and J.D. Martinez hooked a would-be homer just foul down the left-field line.

But Martinez then flew out to end it. 

The Mets, who have been awful, excellent and OK, respectively, to start their season, are trying to show they should be taken seriously.

That mission did not go smoothly against veteran Charlie Morton, who was excellent over seven innings in which he allowed four base runners and never really got into trouble. 

4

Playing in a persistent drizzle in a game whose first pitch was delayed by 55 minutes, the Mets would have needed near perfection from their pitching staff to have a chance.

Quintana could not deliver. 

Quintana allowed four runs in five innings — all within a span of four batters in the third inning — in his second consecutive poor start.

After a mostly strong beginning to his campaign, the lefty has let up 12 runs in his past 7 ²/₃ innings to raise his ERA to 5.44. 

The veteran was rolling, having allowed just one hit over his first 2 ²/₃ innings — a single from Travis d’Arnaud, who was erased on a double play — before getting blasted — and blasted, and blasted — with two outs in the third inning. 

4

Ronald Acuña Jr. demolished a no-doubt, 461-foot shot to the back of the batters’ eye in center field, a space not many hitters reach.

Two pitches later, it was Ozzie Albies who smacked a dinger to left field to make it back-to-back shots from one of the most intimidating offenses in baseball. 

Quintana followed it up by walking Austin Riley, which prompted a mound visit from pitching coach Jeremy Hefner that did not work: The next pitch, a middle-of-the-plate sinker, Matt Olson demolished to right-center for a 4-0 lead that felt much larger. 

Quintana bounced back and did well to get through five innings, particularly because he received little help behind him in the fourth.

Adam Duvall began the frame by hitting a ground ball to the left side that Brett Baty ceded to Lindor, who fielded and threw to first too late to get Duvall.

Michael Harris II followed with a bouncer to Pete Alonso, who fired to second base and hit Lindor in the heel of the glove — and the ball bounced out for Lindor’s second error of the season. 

With a double play and a strikeout, Quintana navigated around the jam that he did not create. His work did not matter. 

4

The Mets’ offense struck out 10 times and did not offer much of a threat until the ninth. Morton retired 10 straight before Lindor knocked his seventh homer of the season. 

Some positives were found in the Mets’ bullpen, which featured encouraging efforts from a few fliers.

Yohan Ramirez, recently picked up for a second time, was perfect over two innings in which he struck out three. 

Adrian Houser, who was at least temporarily demoted out of the rotation, made his first appearance out of the bullpen and did not allow a run (though he did walk two) in his two innings. 

The Queens crowd was quiet until the eighth inning, when a fan rushed the field, traversed the outfield and darted onto the infield trying to elude security.

One guard made a shoestring tackle down the third-base line, and the fan was ushered off. 

That guard finished with just three fewer hits than the Mets.