'He was hitting his truck': Lile dashes around bases for inside-the-park HR ... in extras!

NEW YORK -- As he sprinted around the basepaths at a head-turning speed, Daylen Lile could have set the Nationals team record for most triples in a season.

Instead, the rookie dashed past third -- and kept going.

Lile hit a go-ahead inside-the-park home run off Tyler Rogers in the 11th inning to lift the Nationals to a 5-3 win over the Mets on Saturday at Citi Field.

"As soon as I hit second base and I was seeing how the ball kicked off the wall, I kicked it into another gear,” Lile, 22, said. “I was like, ‘Who knows, maybe I can get an inside-the-park home run.’”

There had not been an extra-innings inside-the-park homer in Major League Baseball since Baltimore’s Austin Hays on Aug. 12, 2020, at the Phillies.

Lile became the first player in Nationals’ team history (2005-present) to do so in extras. Nine Nats players had hit inside-the-park homers in regulation, most recently Joey Meneses on Sept. 16, 2022, against the Marlins.

The left-handed-hitting Lile connected on a line drive off a sinker from the righty reliever Rogers in a 2-2 count. The ball bounced off the bottom of the wall in center field and rolled away from Cedric Mullins toward right field.

The hit was blown in 10 feet by wind, which prevented a home run over the wall, per Statcast.

“I got a decent jump,” said Mullins. “Once I realized I wasn't going to have a play, I stopped myself to get it off the wall. ... It's more of an instinctive-type play. You do what you can. I knew what I was trying to do there. I just didn't execute it.”

Lile whizzed around the bases in 14.86 seconds, the Nats’ fastest home-to-home time in the Statcast Era.

He was waved home by third-base coach Ricky Gutierrez and dove in head-first to evade the off-target relay throw from Mullins.

“I really don’t hear anything [as I’m running the bases],” Lile said. “I’m just trying to get to where I need to be. But it got real quiet as soon as I crossed home plate, so that was nice.”

No player had hit an inside-the-parker at Citi Field since the Rockies' Charlie Blackmon on July 16, 2017.

“When I saw the ball hit the wall, I looked at Daylen and he was hitting his truck, he was going,” said starting pitcher Cade Cavalli, who threw five scoreless innings. “We were just going nuts in the dugout -- ‘C’mon! C’mon! C’mon! Keep going!’ He can fly. It’s real speed. It was incredible.”

The game-winning inside-the-park home run adds to Lile’s remarkable rookie September.

With seven games remaining in the season, Lile is only the fourth player in the last 85 years to have seven-plus triples and four-plus home runs in a calendar month, joining Vada Pinson (June 1963), Willie Mays (June 1957) and Enos Slaughter (July 1942).

Lile is slashing .370/.425/.753 this month.

“He doesn’t give up an at-bat,” said interim manager Miguel Cairo. “He goes there and he plays 27 outs -- today was more than that, today was like 30-something. But it was amazing how resilient they are and how they want to be in the big leagues.”