The Mets opened the week with aspirations of making a push to get back into the National League East race with the Washington Nationals.

Having taken three out of four against the Atlanta Braves the series prior, and the Nationals being swept by the Texas Rangers at home, the Mets were 9.5 games back heading into their three-game series agains the Chicago Cubs.

Taking two out of three from Chicago, the Mets were 8.5 games back from the Nationals, and getting set to welcome the team into Citi Field for the second time this year.

In what could’ve been a huge morale boost for the club, instead turned into continued sloppy defense, poor starting pitching, and too many rally killing double plays for the Mets.

They salvaged the final game of the series, with Jacob deGrom tossing his second straight brilliant start in a week.

However, the Mets are once again staring at a double-digit deficit in the standings and also lost Asdrubal Cabrera, Neil Walker, Matt Harvey, Juan Lagares and Josh Smoker for the foreseeable future due to respective injuries.

At this point though, Mets fans are seemingly holding their breath for when the next injury bug might strike, as it feels like an endless conga line to the disabled list.

The team continues on with a 10-game road trip to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami, and will be scoreboard watching as the Nationals take on the Marlins, Reds, and Cubs over their next 10 games.

As always, here are your MMO Players of the Week for June 12-18.

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: JAY BRUCE

Jay Bruce earns MMO’s Offensive Player of the Week after slashing .407/.448/.704. He led the team in hits (11), runs (5), extra-base hits (4), and tied with Lucas Duda for first in RBI (4).

Of the seven games played, Bruce collected multi-hits in four of them, including his 3-for-3 effort Monday against the Cubs, pushing the Mets to a three-run lead after connecting for his 17th home run in the third.

With the Mets trailing 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth in Thursday’s opening game against the Nationals, Bruce drove in the Mets first run with an RBI double to right, scoring Yoenis Cespedes who doubled in the prior at-bat.

Prior to Monday night’s game against the Dodgers in Los Angeles, and among qualifying players, Bruce has the 14th best OPS with men in scoring position this season at 1.103.

Bruce hit his team leading 18th home run in Friday’s loss to the Nationals, a solo homer leading off the bottom of the ninth. It was Bruce’s 62nd game of the year, which is the fastest the right fielder has ever reached 18 home runs in a season.

Bruce is currently leading the team in hits (70), doubles (16), home runs (18), RBI (47), and extra-base hits (34), prior to Monday’s game.

PITCHER OF THE WEEK: JACOB deGROM

Jacob deGrom earns MMO’s Pitcher of the Week for his two masterful performances on the mound.

In total, deGrom went 2-0 with a 0.53 ERA in 17 innings of work. He held opposing batters to a .143 average with a 0.82 WHIP. His 0.53 ERA led all starters who amassed at least eight innings of work for the past week. He also earned National League Player of the Week.

Opening the series against the Chicago Cubs Monday night, deGrom was dealing from the get-go, allowing just one extra-base hit through the first six innings.

The only mistake deGrom would make would be to shortstop Addison Russell in the seventh, surrendering a solo home run to right-center field.

Fortunately for the Mets, they had decided to score early that game, putting four runs on the board from innings two through four.

DeGrom delivered his second straight strong outing on Sunday, with the Mets reeling after dropping the first three to the Nationals.

With their ace on the mound, deGrom once again guided the Mets through eight sharp innings, allowing just one run (unearned) on three hits with six strikeouts. This was the first time in deGrom’s career that he had back-to-back starts of at least eight innings or more.

With the Mets trailing 1-0 after the first on a fielding error by Wilmer Flores at second, deGrom took matters into his own hands and swatted his first career home run to left-center field in the third inning on the first pitch of the at-bat. He becomes just the 31st pitcher in Mets history to hit at least one home run with the club.

Heading into Sunday’s start, deGrom was tied with John Franco for 15th all-time in Mets strikeout leaders with 592. He now sits alone at 14th (598) after striking out six batters in his performance, now nine away from tying Johan Santana for 13th place.