Who says a homecoming party only lasts one night?
Louisville native Daylen Lile kept the celebration going with friends and family at Great American Ball Park – the Major League stadium closest to his hometown – on Wednesday when he hit the go-ahead home run in the Nationals’ 8-7 win over the Reds.
“It means the absolute world just to be able to do what I'm doing in front of my closest family and friends,” Lile, 23, told reporters. “[To] see the people that've never seen me play at the big-league level is pretty awesome.”
The Nationals had battled back from an early 5-0 deficit to force extras tied at 6 apiece. In the 10th frame with automatic runner CJ Abrams on second base, Lile lifted a slurve from Tony Santillan a Statcast-projected 409 feet. It flew out of right-center field at 105.8 mph.
“It's such a cool moment for him, for his family to experience that,” manager Blake Butera told reporters. “And just seeing his teammates, how happy they were for him, too, there's just a lot to digest and a lot to be excited about in that moment.”
Lile’s cheering section erupted, including his father, Danny, who ran down the steps with his arms raised in elation. Nationals.TV’s Alexa Datt showed Lile the video in their on-field interview shortly after the win.
“That’s somebody with a lot of emotions right there,” Lile said. “I’d seen him beating on his chest whenever I was walking up to the plate. So that’s just somebody who’s proud of me and seeing everything paying off.”
In his first two games of the series, Lile is 5-for-9 with three runs scored, three home runs, seven RBIs, one strikeout, one stolen base and 14 total bases. He is batting .308 with a 1.011 OPS in the month of May.
“He was fired up,” Curtis Mead – who played first, second and third base in the win – told reporters. “Obviously, this is a big series for him with all his family. It was kind of cool to see the emotions come out. It was a massive hit in a big moment.”
Lile’s sixth home run of the season gave the Nationals a valuable margin heading into the bottom of the ninth. After Spencer Steer’s 377-foot shot off PJ Poulin was determined to be a ground-rule double and not a home run because of fan interference, the Nats didn’t let the Reds spoil their comeback, thanks to the cushion provided by Lile. The versatile Poulin, who has started five games and finished four, earned his second save of the season.
“It feels like there's a handful of times where we've fought our way back and ended up coming up just short with the tying run on base, or whatever it might be,” said Butera. “So to see us get over that hump or get over the edge today and come back and win a game like this, it says a lot.”
The Nationals are in position to go for a sweep against the Reds on Thursday afternoon – two hours from where Lile grew up chasing his big league dreams.
“I've said it plenty of times, and I'm sure everybody's said it: We have a lot of fight, we're hungry,” Lile said. “We know what we're capable of doing, and we're confident in each other. We have so much belief in each other that stuff like that, we just brush it off because it's like we know we could come back at any moment in the game.”