CINCINNATI -- With his track record, it was going to take mistake-free baseball and spot-on execution by the Reds to get the best of Dodgers super pitcher Max Scherzer on Saturday. Scherzer came in with one earned run allowed in 20 innings of work lifetime at Great American Ball Park and he's once again a leading contender for another National League Cy Young Award.

Reds pitcher Sonny Gray appeared up to the challenge. The defense behind Gray? Not so much. Miscues, including a few by third baseman Mike Moustakas, burned Cincinnati during a 5-1 defeat that put another dent in its quest for the second NL Wild Card spot. The Reds (77-72) fell to 1 1/2 games behind the Cardinals for a playoff berth, pending the outcome of their game vs. the Padres later Saturday.

"With the guys they run out there on the mound, it takes a very crisp game to come away with the win," Gray said. “It just didn’t go that way for us today. It wasn’t for lack of effort."

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Gray, who retired his first 11 batters, finished with six innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on five hits and two walks with five strikeouts.

“I felt really good. I felt as good as I’ve felt,” Gray said. “They just kind of strung some stuff together there in one inning and that was the game.”

Scherzer allowed two hits over seven scoreless innings and improved to 7-0 with a 0.78 ERA in nine starts for Los Angeles since his July 30 trade from the Nationals.

“We have faced him before and he can take over a game. That’s what happened today,” Reds manager David Bell said. “He did that and made it really tough on us.”

With two outs in the top of the fourth inning, Trea Turner hit a chopper to third base. Moustakas fielded it cleanly, but his throw on the run tailed away from first baseman Joey Votto, who couldn't catch the ball. It could have been an error, but the official scorer ruled it as the first hit for Los Angeles.

After Justin Turner opened the fifth inning with a double to left field, Gray endured more bad luck. Moustakas initially booted a Chris Taylor grounder before picking it up, at which point he looked Turner back to second base -- but he threw the ball away past first base to put runners on second and third. It was initially ruled as a single for Taylor and an additional throwing error, but it was changed postgame to a two-error play for Moustakas. 

“It was a routine play that I just got ahead of myself trying to do a little too much,” Moustakas said. “I thought I had it in my glove. Obviously, I didn’t. When I went to kind of look Turner back to second, I didn’t have the ball. I just made a bad throw to first base. Credit to him for running down the base line hard. He didn’t make me rush my throw, I just made a bad throw. That was that.”

Gavin Lux followed with a two-run triple to the right-field corner. Lux scored on Austin Barnes' soft grounder later in the inning to put the Reds in a 3-0 hole. Moustakas talked to Gray about the poor play he made.

“I told him it was my fault, keep going, keep throwing the ball the way he has,” Moustakas said. “Obviously, he did nothing wrong there. He did exactly what he’s supposed to do.”

Trea Turner led off the sixth inning with a sharp grounder near the third-base line that went off Moustakas' glove for a single. Following a walk and a fielder's choice, Turner scored on a safety squeeze bunt play by Taylor.

“There were plays today that we always make, we typically make and we will make in the future,” Bell said. “You don’t know how big of a difference it would have made, but it was definitely a tough day going against Scherzer. Everything had to go perfect to win that game.”

In his last 10 starts, Gray is 5-2 with a 3.02 ERA. But he's taken back-to-back hard-luck defeats -- including last Sunday's 2-0 loss to the Cardinals when he gave up two runs and three hits over seven innings at Busch Stadium. 

The Reds still have a chance to snap a seven series losing streak Sunday if they can beat the Dodgers in the finale.

“The best thing about today is we can play another game tomorrow,” Moustakas said. “Go out there and find a way to win a series against a great baseball team.”