The night that Giancarlo Stanton made history twice

How could we possibly forget Giancarlo Stanton’s unbelievable 2017 season with the Marlins? His last season as a Fish was unlike anything the franchise has seen before or since, and one of its countless highlights occurred on this day, August 13.

Giancarlo helped Miami defeat the Rockies, 5-3, taking Germán Márquez deep on an opposite-field solo shot in Marlins Park. That shot tied the score three runs apiece.

For the former Marlins right fielder, it was the 250th career home run. Before him, no Marlin had ever hit more than Dan Uggla’s 154, but Stanton finished his tenure with 267 bombs, a mark that seems unreachable in the foreseeable future as the Fish don’t have a clear 40-homer-per-year threat yet.

That solo jack was number 42 for him in that season, tying the franchise record set by Gary Sheffield in 1996. Well, Stanton wouldn’t stop there: he pulverized the pre-existing mark and finished the campaign with 59 balls out of the park to lead the Majors. Take into account that only five men had hit that many home runs at the time (Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds—who was Stanton’s hitting coach in 2016).

Giancarlo came into that game against the Rockies having hit eight round-trippers in his prior nine games and 20 in his last 32. That insane run that helped him capture the National League Most Valuable Player award at the end of the season (despite the team’s overall mediocrity).

In case you were wondering about incredible stats, the California native led MLB with a home run in every 10.1 at-bats. Another one: 8.5 % of his plate appearances from that year ended up over the fence. How about that?

Sadly, we saw him leave to New York four months later. It would’ve been interesting to see him build upon that career year had he not been traded or injured so often in recent seasons. Surely, we’d be talking about at least 300 lifetime home runs, but we’ll never know.