​LOS ANGELES – At least the Cincinnati Reds won’t have to waste the time and money to come back here to get eliminated in the playoffs like they did last year.They took care of that in May and June when they played themselves out of first place and then out of contention by midseason amid a flurry of injuries and worse baseball.The three-game sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers this week served as little more than a perfunctory, three-game step toward October for the two-time defending champs – and little more for the Reds than a reminder of just how far they are from the top of the sport.With young All-Star ace Chase Burns on a short innings limit in the opener and Rookie of the Year favorite Sal Stewart largely quieted for the three days, the Reds’ competitiveness in the series amounted to Elly De La Cruz trading haymakers with the champs and everybody else getting knocked silly.Stewart twisted his left ankle in the first inning of the finale Wednesday (Sept. 9) slipping across first base as he got picked off and was checked by the trainer before staying in the game. Manager Terry Francona, who lifted Stewart in the seventh inning of the 14-1 loss, said his first baseman was fine.They had a lead in one game and played two close in terms of the scores. But when the Reds took the field for the finale, they had six rookies on the field, including three who made their big-league debuts this year. They lost 14-1.Outscored 22-6 in the series, De La Cruz did most of the Reds damage, driving in four runs with a home run each of the three games, including a mammoth, two-run shot off two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal in a 3-2 loss in the middle game.He finished 5-for-11 in the series with a double and one of the defensive plays of the year in the league – throwing out Teoscar Hernandez at the plate from about 200 feet away with a 102-mph relay throw to prevent an inside-the-park home run, a half-inning after the homer off Skubal.”He’s been doing that for five years,” teammate Matt McLain said. “He keeps getting better and better.”Whether the Reds will be able to say the same thing about their competitive chances next year might depend on a heavy load of work for the front office during an offseason fraught with labor war and an all-but-certain lockout on Dec. 1.The only thing certain right now is that they are nowhere near championship-caliber as constructed, despite the big seasons from the big three of Burns, Stewart and De La Cruz.If the lack of effective pitching by rookie Rhett Lowder and the bullpen In the series finale in Los Angeles wasn’t enough to doom the chances of avoiding a sweep, the Dodgers sent $325 million Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the mound to twirl seven three-hit innings for his 13th win of the season.Just like that, the Reds fell back to eight games under .500 and nine games out of playoff position with 16 games left in the string.And the only thing they had left to talk about was next year and De La Cruz – who