5-year Marliniversary: Yelich and Stanton go back-to-back in eighth to push Marlins past Mets

The 2017 Miami Marlins had outfielders who won National League MVP in consecutive seasons.

In 2017, Giancarlo Stanton would become the first and only Marlin to ever win the honor. The following season, Christian Yelich duplicated the feat as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers.

On this day five years ago, those two came up clutch for Miami. The two hit back-to-back home runs during a three-run eighth as the Marlins rallied to beat the New York Mets, 5-4.

Miami was on the short end of a 4-2 score as it came to bat in the bottom of the eighth on April 15, 2017. Jacob deGrom was stellar in his seven innings of work on the mound for the Mets and early on, it looked as though the bullpen would pick up where he left off.

Fernando Salas entered the contest for the Mets and promptly struck out Ichiro Suzuki on three pitches. After getting Dee Strange-Gordon to ground out, Salas was an out away from getting the Mets to the ninth with a two-run lead.

Salas had thrown seven of his first eight pitches for strikes, but walked Miguel Rojas on just four pitches. He then fell behind 3-1 in the count to Yelich. On the very next pitch, Yelich saw a fastball that he could handle and pulled it over the left field wall for the game-tying two-run home run.

With the score tied 4-4, Stanton came up next and proceeded to work the count full. Salas again went with the fastball and paid for it.

Aiming for the outside corner, Salas left the fastball up. Stanton was able to line it over the wall straight away in center field to give Miami a 5-4 lead. AJ Ramos worked a perfect ninth to pick up the save for the Marlins.

Home runs accounted for all of the Miami offense. After the Mets pushed a run across in the first, Justin Bour and Marcell Ozuna hit consecutive home runs to open the bottom of the second. That would be all the Marlins would get against deGrom.

Down 2-1, the Mets took the lead with two runs in the seventh. After tripling home the tying run, Curtis Granderson came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Michael Confornto. The Mets doubled their lead in the top of the eighth with a solo blast from Asdrubal Cabrera off Junichi Tazawa. Tazawa would pick up the win for Miami.

The teams combined for 11 hits. Mets infielder Neil Walker, who doubled home the game’s first run, was the only player to record two hits. Neither deGrom nor Miami starter Adam Conley factored in the decision.

In 2017, Stanton and Yelich would combine for 77 home runs. Their back-to-back shots in the eighth were the difference in a victory over the Mets on this day five years ago.