[Stardust]

CINCINNATI -- The Jonny Gomes trade to the Nationals was finalized about the time the Reds were going to take the field Tuesday night.

Does that affect a team?

• Box score

“Probably so,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “He was a big part of our family.”

The Reds played as if they were in shock or just shockingly bad. They made three errors and could have been charged with two more in an ugly 8-6 loss to the New York Mets before a crowd of 27,552 at Great American Ball Park.

Johnny Cueto’s streak of quality starts ended at 11. With better fielding, he may have made it through the required six innings.

“We gave away a lot of runs tonight,” Baker said. “We kicked the ball around. Johnny threw the ball pretty good. But they had batted around twice before we batted around once. (The errors) were very uncharacteristic.”

The Reds' loss, coupled with St. Louis’ 3-1 win over Houston, put the Reds five games back in the National League Central.

Cueto pitched five innings and allowed six runs – none of which were earned – and seven hits, struck out five and walked one. All the extra outs had Cueto’s pitch count at 110 before he left the game one hitter into the sixth inning.

“I can’t control that,” Cueto said. “It’s part of the game. I was just trying to throw strikes, put the ball in play. No one wants to make an error.”

The Reds gave the Mets a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Justin Turner doubled with one out, Carlos Beltran reached on an error on a ball that went right off first baseman Joey Votto’s glove. That put runners on first and third.

Turner scored on David Wright’s groundout, and Daniel Murphy followed with a flyball to right field. Jay Bruce got a glove on it, but the ball dropped. It was generously scored a hit.

The Mets scored two more unearned runs -- Brandon Phillips misplayed a ball to start the inning -- in the third to make it 4-0.

The Reds got on the board in the fourth. Phillips singled with one out. He stole second and scored an out later on Chris Heisey’s RBI singled.

The Reds took the lead in the fifth. Ramon Hernandez walked. Cueto sacrificed him to second. Drew Stubbs singled. Edgar Renteria got both runners home with a double down the right field line. Votto followed with a home run to left field to make it 5-4.

Baker tried to get one more inning out of Cueto. Cueto walked Jason Bay to start the inning. Ronny Paulino followed with a potential double-play ball to Miguel Cairo at third. Cairo booted it for a two-base error.

"It happened so quick," Baker said. "We couldn’t get (Aroldis) Chapman ready."

Cueto gave up a two-run double to Jason Pridie on his 110th pitch of the night.
That made it 6-5.

Nick Masset gave up two runs on four hits in the seventh to make it an
8-5 game.

The Reds drew within two runs in the eighth on Fred Lewis’ pinch-hit RBI single.