LOS ANGELES — After Sunday’s loss to the Chicago Cubs, Freddie Freeman assessed the first three weeks of the Dodgers’ season as being “all over the place.”

That erratic level of play landed them in a new place Monday – under .500 for the first time this season.

The Dodgers took the lead over the New York Mets on three different occasions Monday night but gave it away each time, finally and irrevocably in a three-run seventh inning that sent them to an 8-6 defeat.

The Dodgers’ seventh loss in their past 10 games dropped them to 8-9 on the season – below .500 for the first time since April 10 of last season (1-2). In fact, this marks the latest into a season the Dodgers have had a losing record since 2018 when they spent their last day under .500 (30-31) on June 6. In the past four seasons, they were under .500 for a total of two days (one each in 2021 and 2022).

“We’d love to be 17-0. We haven’t gotten off to the start we wanted,” Freeman said after the latest loss. “But what does talking about it do? We’ve got to go out there and start playing better and win games. That’s really all we can do.”

Freeman was 2 for his last 20 after a four-strikeout game Sunday and did something about it, hitting two home runs off Mets left-hander David Peterson on Monday. It was his first multi-homer game as a Dodger.

“I didn’t do anything differently baseball-wise. But I trimmed my beard and I wore cologne,” Freeman said.

His first home run (in the first inning) gave the Dodgers their first lead. Dustin May gave it back in the second inning, serving up a two-run home run to Daniel Vogelbach.

The Dodgers went back on top with a two-out, two-run double by Austin Wynns in the bottom of the second. But May couldn’t hold that lead either, giving up three runs in the fourth.

May departed in the sixth inning having given up five runs on eight hits. The eight hits are the most he gave up in a game since his MLB debut in August 2019 and he has allowed more than five runs just once in 41 career games.

“Quality of execution was not that great,” May said. “I was throwing balls in the strike zone and they were just hitting little shots over the infield and getting on base. Good baseball by them, I guess. Again, I have to make better quality throws in those scenarios and I didn’t.”

But Freeman’s second home run of the game, a two-run shot in the fifth inning, and Max Muncy’s sixth homer in the past seven games put the Dodgers on top, 6-5, through six innings.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had replaced May with lefty reliever Alex Vesia in the sixth and Vesia struck out Brett Baty to end the inning.

But Roberts sent Vesia back out to face the Mets’ No. 9 hitter, Tomas Nido, to start the seventh. It was a bad idea. Vesia has given up 15 hits to the 31 batters he has faced this season after Nido singled to left. Brandon Nimmo reached on a swinging bunt and Starling Marte made it three consecutive singles to load the bases with no outs.

Roberts pulled Vesia but not for Evan Phillips to protect in the high-leverage spot. Phillips never even warmed up as the non-closer Dodgers continue to treat Phillips as their closer, saving him for a ninth-inning scenario that never arrived Monday.

With Brusdar Graterol (and Caleb Ferguson) unavailable based on recent usage, Roberts went with Phil Bickford, who was called for a balk before he could deliver his first pitch. That forced in the tying run. The go-ahead run scored on Bickford’s first pitch, a ground out to first base. Pete Alonso cashed in the third run of the inning with an RBI single and the Mets re-loaded the bases before Justin Bruihl came in and got a fly ball out to end the inning.

“There’s always going to be a spot every night for a guy like Evan, and you can’t fire that bullet every night,” Roberts said of his seventh-inning decisions. “Vesia to go back out there to get the nine hitter and to get the lefty (Nimmo), I don’t expect three straight hits, to be quite honest.

“You have to understand the rhythm of the game too. If I knew that it was going to be bases loaded and Evan was ready. But I’m not going into that inning expecting bases loaded and nobody out either. So I felt good with Alex going right there and taking down one or two outs potentially with three hitters, and having Phil behind him, but that just wasn’t the case.”

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Whatever order Roberts has deployed his relievers this season, it hasn’t worked out very well. Through the first 17 games, the bullpen group has a 4.97 ERA, 24th in the majors and 13th in the National League.

“These are our guys,” Roberts said. “They have track records and we have to keep running them out. But we’ve gotta perform.”

The Dodgers put the tying runs in scoring position in the eighth inning after Freeman blooped a single into left field and James Outman lined a ground-rule double into the right field wall (it stuck in the padding). But Muncy popped out and Miguel Vargas struck out.

Outman had entered the game in the eighth inning as a defensive replacement for Chris Taylor, who left with pain in his left side after a throw from the outfield. He will be re-evaluated Tuesday.

“It’s baseball. It’s gonna happen,” Muncy said of the Dodgers’ slump. “It is frustrating, but you’ve just got to go out there every single day and play that game and not worry about what’s been happening, what’s gonna happen. Just gotta worry about today, and as long as we do that, I feel confident about our team.”