On this road trip, Cleveland has been no-hit, lost a game when its first baseman clanged a throw off the helmet of an opposing runner, and had starting pitchers chased in the first and in the third innings. 

But the most frustrating way to lose might have actually arrived in a 3-2, 10th inning defeat Saturday at Great American Ball Park. Because while the sizzling stuff of Carlos Rodón, an errant throw from the rookie Yu Chang and nights when Zach Plesac and Logan Allen simply didn’t have it can all be explained away, there is nothing quite as unnerving as what should have been the routine final out of a one-run win sneaking under the first baseman’s glove. 

Josh Naylor, who had hit into a triple play an inning earlier, had the Bill Buckner moment that thwarted a Tribe team that had taken a 2-1 lead into the ninth. And while this moment wasn’t as high-stakes as Buckner’s in the 1986 World Series, it did help put the Tribe in an 0-2 hole in the Ohio Cup.

“He just missed it,” manager Terry Francona said. “He just missed it. I don’t know how else to tell you.”

Truthfully, the Tribe had been walking the tightrope long before the two-base error that put the Reds in position to tie this tilt.

Rookie Triston McKenzie wasn’t at his sharpest and danced around traffic throughout his outing, but he came through with seven strikeouts in five innings, only allowing a Tucker Barnhart solo homer.

“Really just going out there and competing,” said McKenzie, who also notched his first career hit by stroking a single in the fourth. “Me and [catcher Austin] Hedges were trying to attack guys regardless of who got on.”

An Eddie Rosario RBI triple and an Andrés Giménez solo homer backed McKenzie’s solid outing. As did a gift of an out when Joey Votto ran through a stop sign at third base and was thrown out at home in the fifth. Scoreless innings of relief from Bryan Shaw, Nick Wittgren and James Karinchak aided the effort and kept Cleveland upright on that dangled cord.

Of course, the tightrope would not have been quite so tight had Cleveland not erased an opportunity to pad its 2-1 lead in the eighth.

With runners on the corners, Naylor hit into what turned out to be a triple play because Rosario, thinking the ball had bounced off the ground, mistakenly broke for home. Votto was able to snare Naylor’s liner, tag Franmil Reyes at first and then easily throw to third to retire Rosario. Votto could have run the ball to third himself for an unassisted triple play if he wanted that rare result. Regardless, it was the first time a Cleveland club had hit into a triple play since Sept. 1, 2000.

But that missed opportunity wouldn’t have mattered had Naylor gotten his glove down in the ninth. Naylor had actually fielded the first two outs of the inning when closer Emmanuel Clase and his triple-digit repertoire induced two grounders sent Naylor’s way. But on the third -- a harmless grounder off the bat of Max Schrock -- Naylor failed to go 3-for-3. Schrock advanced all the way to second on the two-base error.

Jesse Winker singled on a grounder that scooted past shortstop Giménez at short to score pinch-runner Nick Senzel with the tying run. In the 10th, after the Tribe came up empty with the automatic runner at second, Cincinnati’s automatic runner, Eugenio Suárez, tagged up and advanced to third on a Tyler Naquin fly out. And after Oliver Perez intentionally walked Johnathan India, Tyler Stephenson’s RBI single brought the winning run home to conclude an eventful -- and, for Cleveland, irritating -- afternoon.

“It’s a difficult situation, but things happen,” Giménez said. “We’re competing and we want to do our best. We don’t wish that [Naylor error] to happen to anybody. We have to learn from this and move on and be better.”

At least there’s this -- the 2-4 road trip that has featured some gut-wrenching losses concludes with Shane Bieber on the mound in Cincinnati on Sunday.