5-year Marliniversary: Stanton breaks Sheffield’s single-season Marlins home run record

For more than two decades, Gary Sheffield’s 42 home runs in 1996 stood as the single-season club record for the Florida/Miami Marlins.

On this day five years ago, that mark fell by the wayside. In an 8-3 victory for the Miami Marlins over the San Francisco Giants, Giancarlo Stanton wasted little time making history.

Stanton had homered in four straight games as he stepped to the plate in the bottom of the first at Marlins Park on August 14, 2017. With a runner on and nobody out against Giants pitcher Ty Blach, Stanton left no doubt.

On a fastball from Blach, Stanton lined a screamer over the left field wall. It was his 43rd of the season and a new Marlins record.

Denard Span’s two-run double highlighted a three-run third as the Giants took a 3-2 lead, but that was short lived. After scoring the tying run on a Christian Yelich RBI single in the third, Dee Strange-Gordon put Miami ahead for good with an RBI infield single in the fourth. Stanton followed with an RBI single of his own.

Up 5-3, Miami pushed its lead to three on a solo home run from Marcell Ozuna to lead off the bottom of the fifth. Tyler Moore’s RBI double highlighted a two-run seventh.

Strange-Gordon finished with three hits in the victory. Adam Conley picked up the win. But the night belonged to Stanton.

Stanton would go on to hit 59 home runs and become the first Miami player ever to earn National League MVP honors. He set the club’s single-season home run record on this day five years ago.