By Hal McCoy
His name is Daylen Lile but to the Cincinnati Reds his name is Vile Lile.
The Washington Nationals left fielder was a vile villian not only this weekend, but for six games against the Reds this season.
The Louisville native, just two hours down the road from Cincinnati, was 10 for 25 with four home runs and 12 RBI in six games, five won by the Nationals.
With Lile contributing another RBI single Sunday afternoon in Nationals Park, Washington completed a three-game sweep of the Reds, 7-1.
It was a massively debilitating series for the Reds and their desire to grab the final wild card spot.
When they arrived in Washington, they were ahead of the Nationals in the wild card chase, but with the three-game sweep they’ve fallen 1 1/2 games behind the Nats, 5 1/2 games away from the final spot.
And they have five teams to climb over — the Padres, Marlins, Pirates, Cardinals and Nationals — with only 45 games left.
The match-up looked favorable Sunday for the Reds because it was a Bullpen Day for Washington and the Nationals’ bullpen has been a disaster area.
Not this day.
The Reds’ offense consisted of four hits, three singles and a double. Meanwhile the Nats raked 13 hits, a perfect example why Washington owns the fifth highest team batting average in MLB at .250 and the Reds are last at .228.
And Washington is the top scoring team in MLB, 5 1/2 runs per game.
Lefthander Brad Lord, the opener, pitched 2 1/3 innings and gave up one run and two hits with four strikeouts.
Then Will Dion, Trevor Williams and Jake Bird pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings on two hits. The four Nationals pitchers didn’t walk a batter and struck out nine.
The Reds took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a leadoff single by Tyler Stephenson, a hit by pitch on Eugenio Suarez and a sacrifice fly by Dane Myers.
And that was it.
For the three-game series the Reds lost by 5-3, 8-2 and 7-1. The Reds were 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position during the series to Washington’s 13 for 24.
When silencers are put on Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz, Sal Stewart and JJ Bleday, the usual one, two and three in the batting order, the Reds are dormant.
De La Cruz was 1 for 10 (a homer), Stewart was 2 for 12 with three strikeouts and hit into two crucial double plays in Game One and Bleday was 1 for 11 with four strikeouts.
“That’s a tough ask because they are not going to hit every day,” said Reds manager Tito Francona. “When it happens in a situation like this it is a little more glaring.”
The Nats grabbed the lead for good in the second with two runs on three hits and a sacrifice fly and took a 3-1 lead in the third on an inning-opening home run by rookie Abimelec Ortiz.
That’s all they got off Singer, who pitched another quality game — six innings, three runs and eight hits.
It was 3-1 when he left after six, but the Nationals scored a run off Brock Burke and three off Tejay Antone.
“I didn’t think Singer had his best slider today,” said Francona. “And his velocity was down a couple of ticks early.
“But you look up after six and he battled, fought and scratched, gave up three, but gave us a chance. I’m saying that as a compliment because he didn’t have his best stuff today.”
The Nationals were staggering when the series began and the Reds were riding the high of a four-game winning streak.
The Nats had lost eight of nine and were playing for the 17th straight day.
Everything turned out the direct opposite.
The Nationals were playing without their best player, James Wood (on the injured list) and they strangely traded two regular players at the deadline, Luis Garcia Jr. and Foster Griffin.
Lile’s family from Louisville was in the stands and he did them proud.
Asked about how it felt to perform above and beyond against the team so close to where he grew up, Lile said, “It feels pretty good. I went to a game there once and knew I wanted to be in the big leagues. And doing so well against the team that I’m two hours away from is pretty awesome.”
Lile talked after the sweep the way Reds players were talking after their recent homestand.
“We’ve been through a lot of ups and down as a team, so to come back to our home field and sweep the Reds is great and now we have to take care of the Chicago Cubs (Washington’s next three at home).
“We’re never out of it, we’re always fighting,” he added. “We have a lot of hard workers, yeah, and people need to stop doubting us.”
The Reds have no doubts.
While the Nationals are hosting the Chicago Cubs for three games after a day off, the Reds also are off Monday then visit Chicago’s other team, the White Sox, for three games.