CINCINNATI -- Hoping to gain some traction in a division in which every team has been running in place for a month, the Brewers again broke out their home run bats on Tuesday against the Reds.

Instead, while Milwaukee was going over the wall, what first baseman Eric Thames described as Great American Ball Park’s “hard infield” cost the Brewers the game.

• Box score

For the second time in two nights, Milwaukee batters teamed up to hit three homers, but they weren’t enough as Yasiel Puig scored from first on José Iglesias’ single off right-hander Corbin Burnes (1-4) and Christian Yelich’s throwing error for a 5-4, 11-inning loss.

Iglesias’s chopper with Puig on first got over Thames’ head, and Puig slid into third. Thames tried to cut off Yelich’s throw on a bounce, but the ball got away from him far enough for Puig to alertly jump up and scamper home.

“I couldn’t believe that ball went over my head,” Thames said. “Any other park, I would have caught it. Off the bat, I was thinking, ‘How is that bouncing over my head?’ Then the throw back in hit the ground and got away from me. That’s an unfortunate way to lose.”

“It got away from Eric too far,” said manager Craig Counsell, who blamed himself for letting the Reds tie the game in the eighth. “If you just knock it down, nothing happens. You can’t let it get away from you that much. In the end, we didn’t make a defensive play.”

Nick Senzel scored the game-tying run from first base on Joey Votto’s two-out double into the right-field corner in the eighth against right-hander Matt Albers with left-hander Alex Claudio warming up in the bullpen.

“I had Alex up for Votto, and I didn’t go to him,” Counsell said. “I should have. I overthought it. That was my mistake.”

Yelich and Thames each hit solo shots, and Mike Moustakas gave the Brewers a 4-2 lead with a two-run line drive into the right-field seats in the sixth, but the Brewers were denied their fourth straight win, which would have matched their warmest streak since a season-best seven straight in early May.

They had gone 15-15 over their previous 30 games, tied with St. Louis for the Central’s best record in that stretch. The other three teams all were 14-16.

The loss snapped Milwaukee’s six-game win streak against the Reds at Great American Ball Park. The two teams have combined to hit 11 home runs in the first two games of their four-game series.

Right-hander Chase Anderson allowed just Eugenio Suárez’s first-inning, two-run homer in 5 2/3 innings. Anderson didn’t walk anybody while giving up five hits and striking out two.

Suarez’s homer, on a 92 mph, 2-0, two-seam fastball, was his third in the first two games of the series and 20th of the season.

After going eight games without a home run, Yelich hit his second in two days and his MLB-leading 31st of the season in the fourth, a solo shot on a 3-1, 93.2 mph two-seam fastball from Reds starter Tanner Roark. Both homers were opposite-field jobs to left, though Tuesday’s shot had more juice than Monday’s popup that barely cleared the wall in the left-field corner.

Thames, who hit 14 home runs in his first 37 career games against the Reds, led off the fifth with his first of the season against Cincinnati and 13th overall, three in the last four games. Like Yelich, Thames went opposite field to left on a 1-1, 92.7 mph two-seam fastball for his first career hit against Roark. He went into the at-bat 0-for-8 with six strikeouts against the Reds right-hander.

On the first pitch after Yelich struck out on a 75.5 mph curveball with Yasmani Grandal on first base in the sixth, Moustakas lined an 87.5 mph slider into the right-field seats for his 24th homer of the season.

Worth noting

Left-hander Brent Suter was cleared to travel to Arizona and start throwing to batters, the next step in his comeback from Tommy John surgery that was performed last July 31.

Counsell described left fielder Ryan Braun as “banged up” after Braun slid into the wall in foul territory making a sliding catch in the sixth. Braun left the game after that inning, but Counsell had planned to take him out anyway in a double-switch. Counsell expects Braun to be available on Wednesday.