NEW YORK -- It was going to be an evening Brian Bannister would recall forever, regardless of its outcome. It would produce a flood of firsts no matter what -- first game, first out, first strikeout, first wild pitch.

"Get 'em all out of your system," he would say later.

The first ball put in play was taken out of play and saved for him, and the ball he threw a moment later for his first strikeout was saved as well.

And when Bannister walked to the mound to start the sixth inning, a first of far greater consequence still was in the offing -- the Mets' first no-hitter. A far-fetched first as it turned out.

In the end, though, the most prominent first produced in this see-your-breath evening at Shea Stadium was one that took his breath away, his first big-league heartbreak.

A home run by Ryan Zimmerman, the first of his career, off Billy Wagner in the ninth inning denied Bannister a victory in his big-league debut. And an inning later, Jorge Julio allowed a two-run home run by Jose Guillen that led to the worst first, the Mets' first defeat -- a vexing 9-5 loss to the Nationals. A year and a day after two ninth-inning home runs did in Braden Looper in an Opening Day loss to the Reds, the Mets produced an unwanted variation on that theme, temporarily turning Shea Stadium into a mausoleum and its left-field wall into a wailing wall.

"It is kind of similar -- frightening," Cliff Floyd said.

This unhappy ending needed more time to develop. The Mets' closer gave the Nationals an opening in the ninth when they tied the score at 4, and they rushed through it in the 10th, when the Mets made an error and Julio made a forgettable debut with his new team.

"It's baseball. What can I say?" Julio said. "Too much plate."

"Not the way we planned it," said Wagner.

He took the loss the way a veteran closer takes one.

"There'll be others," he said, not as a warning, but as a prediction.

If he beat himself up, it would happen later, away from the clubhouse, away from the scrutiny.

His teammates and the Shea Stadium gathering of 19,557 seemed to take it harder.

"I was shocked," Floyd said about the impact of Zimmerman's home run. "I've never heard it that quiet in my life."

The silence seemed louder in the 10th when Guillen hit the fifth extra-inning home run of his career.

The fans at Shea were rendered speechless, they gasped for air, much the way rookie second baseman Anderson Hernandez had in the eighth inning when he made a brilliant, leaping catch in short right field and used his rib cage as his primary landing gear.

"You give it up in the ninth, and it's like that -- a kick in the stomach," Wagner said.

The unbecoming ending obscured what had been a mostly uplifting evening for the Mets. Bannister allowed no hits for 5 1/3 innings, then three runs in the sixth, all on an opposite-field home run by Nick Johnson. In the end, he had surrendered two hits and four walks, he hit two batters, struck out four and threw a wild pitch.

"I didn't really settle down until the fourth inning," Bannister said. "It was almost a blessing that it was cold. It made me concentrate on my pitches. I made pitches when I had to. But I wasn't right early in the count."

"He pitched good, not great," Floyd said. "And if he doesn't give it up to Johnson, he pitches great."

Wih his parents and some buddies in attendance, Bannister became the first Mets pitcher since Tom Seaver in 1967 to make his debut as a starter in the first or second game of a season -- no Mets rookie ever has started on Opening Day. Bannister had a chance to become the first Mets rookie to win his Major League debut, as a starter, since Masato Yoshii in 1998, eight years ago to the date.

But Zimmerman, a Virginia boy like Wagner, interfered.

"It's gonna be tough going to the [University of Virginia] Cavalier banquets next winter," Wagner said. "First his jersey sells for more than mine. Now I've got to deal with this?

"But Zim's a good guy. My kids got his autograph. ... He hit a pitch [a 3-2 fastball] not too many people can hit. That's all there was to it."

Bannister, fully aware of big-league protocol, kept most of his disappointment inside, lest he offend the man he hoped will be in position to save other victories. When the righty allowed a run in Spring Training after nine scoreless innings and raised his profile and his chance of winning a spot in the rotation, he paraphrased bumper sticker and T-shirt philosophy.

"Runs happen," he said.

"They do," Wagner said. "If you give up nothing for a while, when they do come, they'll come in bunches and bite you."

He and Bannister had the bite marks.

"We both ran the gamut of emotions," Bannister said, assuming full responsibility for his three runs. "It's obviously disappointing. But I threw the exact same pitch to Johnson -- up in the zone -- he threw [to Zimmerman]. ... So I know how it feels. I gave [Wagner] a tap.

"I know it's tough to watch guys run around the bases. ... We feel each other's pain."

Julio felt it too, and Floyd shared it. Guillen hit a 2-2 pitch barely over the left-field wall and Floyd's glove.

"I was close. I saw it," the Mets' left fielder said. "Two inches -- but all I got was a fist full of fence. ... You know, sometimes you hate baseball."