After the Mets came off a red-hot road trip, Terry Collins expected them to come back to Flushing loose and confident. What he got is a team that’s tight and pressing, squeezing the life out of its own bats.

The Mets’ 6-2 loss to the Braves Tuesday night was their fifth in eight games on this homestand, ensuring their first losing homestand of the year. It’s a good thing for the Amazin’s their NL East lead is so big, and the Nationals are so bad, because their lineup has gone ice-cold at the worst possible time.

“I’m shocked,’’ Collins said. “I’m very, very surprised, because we were swinging great coming into a homestand and had a chance to make a huge impact with a very substantial lead where nobody needed to be uptight. Should’ve been quite relaxed with the lead we had, should’ve been going out and just playing the game nice and loosely and calm. For me it looks like we’re tight. I don’t know why, but it’s sure the perception it looks like from the bench.’’

And it’s the perception from the Citi Field stands, where 26,227 saw the Mets’ lineup smothered by a struggling rookie who hadn’t been able to buy a win for months. They scored just two runs and struck out 10 times, eight of them against Matt Wisler (6-8), who’d been 0-7 with an 8.08 ERA in 10 starts since July 26.

Yes, the Mets’ offense has become that bad. After closing out their road trip by piling up 49 runs in a seven-game winning streak, they’ve dropped five of eight on this homestand, mustering just 20 runs (2 ¹/₂ runs per game). And even though their magic number fell to six thanks to Washington’s loss, they’ve watched a 9 ½-game lead they had upon their return shrivel to 6 ½.

“We’ve got to play better. We came off a tremendous road trip, we come home where we’ve played great all year long and all of a sudden we’ve hit a wall,’’ Collins said. “We aren’t swinging the bats very good, we had 10 more strikeouts tonight. We’ve got to go back and quit trying to hit homers. Let’s hit some line drives. We’ve just got to swing the bats better, because we’re a better offensive team than what we’ve showed this homestand.’’

Two days after the Mets dropped the Subway Series finale trying to manage Matt Harvey’s innings, they lost Tuesday trying to limit Jacob deGrom’s. They skipped deGrom’s turn in the rotation, and in his third spot start, Logan Verrett (1-2) finally fell short, coughing up four runs in the fifth on a pair of homers.

After Jace Peterson hit his full-count pitch for a solo shot, Verrett intentionally walked Nick Markakis with two out, and then — upon falling behind Hector Olivera 0-2 — surrendered a three-run blast to left to put the Mets behind 4-1.

“I liked the matchup against Olivera, just missed with the pitch. With two guys on base you can’t do that. It makes it hard to come back from that,’’ said Verrett, who had stood in for Harvey twice and excelled both times. But this time, after David Wright’s first-inning solo shot gave him a lead, he couldn’t hold it.

“It’s our job to turn the tide and win this series [Wednesday] and pick up that momentum again. I don’t sense that anybody is tight in here or feeling the pressure. … Sometimes you just get beat and we’ve had a couple of those,’’ Wright said. “We have four, five series left. Win those four series and get some momentum back on our side because we’ve lost a little of that momentum that we gained.’’

They didn’t score again until the eighth on Michael Cuddyer’s bases-loaded sac fly, but Edwin Jackson got Wilmer Flores to ground out meekly to end the Mets’ threat. In the ninth Tyler Clippard served up a 1-2 changeup that Adonis Garcia roped for a two-run, pinch-hit double to essentially end the game.

“Falling behind to Olivera hurt [Verrett]. … He got behind in the count threw a fastball, too good a pitch,’’ said Collins. “It’s the same thing Clippard did the last inning, the pitch to Garcia. He leaves a breaking ball in the strike zone. You’ve got to make a pitch. We didn’t make a pitch we had to make.’’