CINCINNATI -- There are 10 days until the July 30 Trade Deadline, and the outcomes of the past four games since the All-Star break -- all Reds losses, including a wild 15-11 defeat in 11 innings to the Mets on Monday -- should only add to the urgency of what the club not only needs to do, but what it must do. 

If there is bullpen help to be had on the trade market, the Reds should go after it or risk finding their suddenly fading hopes of making the playoffs getting too far out of reach. The bullpen’s fingerprints were on three of the past four losses, but Monday’s might have been the most difficult. New York scored five runs in the top of the 11th inning to put the game away.

• Box score

Second-place Cincinnati was four games behind the first-place Brewers in the National League Central race going into the All-Star break. That deficit is now 7 1/2 games. Milwaukee swept the three-game series from the Reds over the weekend.

“Baseball can love you some days and some days it’ll hate you,” said second baseman Jonathan India, who reached safely six times in seven plate appearances. “Things just aren’t going our way right now and it sucks. We have to keep fighting. That’s the only way we’ll get through this. We can’t quit. We can’t get down. We still have a lot more of the season.”

The Reds’ offense battled back from a deficit three times in this game. It got a huge lift from Jesse Winker’s RBI double in the seventh inning for an 8-7 lead. But pinch-hitter James McCann’s two-run homer off Josh Osich put the Mets ahead by a run in the top of the eighth. 

After Heath Hembree kept the Mets in check with 1 1/3 scoreless innings, Winker delivered a second time with two outs in the ninth, this time on a game-tying RBI double against Mets closer Edwin Díaz. The Mets took back the lead in the top of the 10th inning on McCann’s RBI single that made it a 10-9 game against fresh callup Edgar García, who was making his Reds debut.

Against Anthony Banda in the bottom of the 10th, Tyler Naquin battled with three two-strike foul balls before tying the game with his fifth hit of the night -- an RBI single to left field. García was back for the 11th when Jeff McNeil hit a one-out RBI single that scored José Peraza with the final go-ahead run of the night. 

Called upon to pitch in his fourth consecutive game, rookie Ryan Hendrix replaced García with two outs and gave up a three-run homer to left field by Kevin Pillar, and Michael Conforto went back-to-back to center field to put the game away.

“Nobody is thrilled that we’ve lost four, of course,” said Naquin, who had the first five-hit night of his career. “Everybody wants to win, no matter if it’s checkers or a big league ballgame, you know? You just have to keep going. I wish I had the answer to it.

“I know we’re over halfway, but you’ve got to keep grinding, keep plugging away and know that we’ve got the guys to do it -- bullpen and lineup. Sometimes guys are going to hit rough spots and other guys are going to have to pick them up. It’s part of a team sport, man. You’ve got to keep plugging away.”

Down to their last man on the bench, the Reds had Nick Castellanos take right field during a double switch in the 11th inning. Batting in the bottom half, Castellanos -- who missed two games with a sore right wrist from being hit by a pitch vs. the Brewers on Friday -- came close to hitting a three-run homer with a ball to the warning track in right field.

“Bottom line, he’s a professional,” Naquin said. “It showed with something like that. He’s shown it all year. But he’s a pro.”

Reds relievers gave up nine runs (seven earned) against the Mets, and in the four-game skid, they have allowed 20 runs (18 earned) over 20 innings for a 9.00 ERA. Two of the games have been 11-inning affairs that required manager David Bell to use seven relievers both times.

“It was just one of those nights that we allowed some homers, a lot of runs,” Bell said. “Ryan, obviously, coming in there and stepping up and making himself available to get out of an inning. … He did everything he could, but other than that, guys just kept us in the game. What a game to go that deep, extra innings. Our offense, all night, so many good things happened to get us to that point.”

The bullpen, which boasted a stingy 1.90 ERA over the final 17 games of the first half, is still ranked 28th in the Majors in ERA. During the offseason, when payroll was trimmed, the bullpen took the hit when closer Raisel Iglesias was traded and Archie Bradley was non-tendered.

Clubhouses generally welcome trade acquisitions for a playoff push. This year would likely be no different, although Naquin voiced public support for the roster.

“Sitting here, I personally believe in the guys that we have. Guys are going to go through spells and whatnot. That’s part of this game. When you play 162 of them, you can’t expect these guys to make perfect pitches every time or get the big hit every single time,” Naquin said. “That’s above me. I’m here and I’m going to play hard every single day in that lineup and have our guys’ backs -- every single one of them.”