MINNEAPOLIS -- Monday had the makings of winding up as a huge night for the Reds’ bullpen. Given a short start by Tyler Mahle, several relievers put together five scoreless innings and escaped some heavy situations while doing it.

But on a road trip that began on a roll and is now defined by heartbreak, Cincinnati came away with a fifth-straight loss after dropping a 7-5 game to the Twins at Target Field. It was Miguel Sanó's walk-off two-run home run against Heath Hembree that did them in during the bottom of the 12th inning. The Reds, who used nine relievers in the series opener, are back below .500 with a 35-36 record.

"Our bullpen, what an unbelievable job they did to give us an opportunity to win that game," manager David Bell said. "A bunch of big outs, a lot of really big innings, guys coming through. We gave ourselves an opportunity and that’s all you can ask for. They were outstanding tonight for a long time.”

Not quite long enough, however.

In the top of the 10th of a 3-3 game, Nick Castellanos led off and hit an RBI single to right-center field that scored pinch-runner Mike Freeman, who opened the inning on second base. It gave the Reds their first lead of the night. Eugenio Suárez added a sacrifice fly that scored Castellanos for a two-run lead.

Lefty reliever Sean Doolittle was given the bottom of the 10th inning and could not hold the lead. Luis Arraez drove in the automatic runner with a leadoff double to the left-field wall to make it a one-run game. Sanó scorched a single on the ground into left field to put runners on the corners and Trevor Larnach tied the game with a sacrifice fly to left field.

Doolittle has a 4.91 ERA in 30 appearances.

"He's working hard, he's trying to find it. He's close. He's very close," Bell said. "He saw a ton of foul balls. I know he's close, but it's a little bit hard for him right now to put guys away. He continues to work, he's had success. I do not feel like he's far off. It's just a small tweak, a small adjustment. He's going to keep working until he finds them."

Cincinnati's bullpen has a Major League-worst 5.58 ERA, but it got many big performances. In his debut for the club, Josh Osich got the relievers going when he replaced Mahle with 2 1/3 scoreless innings.

In both the eighth and ninth innings, Amir Garrett and Lucas Sims pitched out of bases-loaded jams to force extras.

“We’ve seen Lucas be able to do that before, just be able to pitch out of situations like that," Bell said. "Your back is against the wall and he kept making pitches. Same with Amir."

Sims, who was off the previous four games, was not given a second inning of work as Bell gave the ball to Doolittle.

"All of these guys are at different points of their rest and season," Bell explained. "Sometimes we go into a game where guys are available for one-plus, sometimes multiple innings. A lot of times, it’s one max or come into a game, get out of an inning and they’re done. Lucas, in his case tonight, he was good for one inning.”

After Doolittle gave up the lead, rookie Ryan Hendrix resumed the theme of good performances. Hendrix, who gave up a walk-off homer in the losing streak's first game on Thursday at San Diego and got roughed up again on Friday, delivered 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief.

"Being able to bounce back is huge for me," Hendrix said. "It’s unfortunate we couldn’t get the win, but yeah, I felt good out there. I felt comfortable."

The Reds were unable to score in both the 11th and 12th innings. Only once in the 12 previous games did they not score in an extra inning with the automatic runner on second base.

When Minnesota batted in the bottom of the 12th, Cincinnati’s eighth reliever -- Hembree -- picked up a groundout. But Hembree's 3-1 pitch to Sanó was launched deep to left field to end the five-hour, 14-minute game.

Bell didn't want to have to use Hembree, who worked each of the last two games -- and gave up a game-losing home run late on Saturday vs. the Padres.

"We were trying to avoid him but he was available. He was our last guy that we were going to go to," Bell said.