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At the time of his season-ending hand injury in June, Stanton had played only 74 games but hit 27 home runs, with a batting average of .265. His batted balls had the highest average exit velocity of the season in the major leagues, at 96.0 miles per hour. He also hit the ball with the highest exit velocity in the major league all season, at 120.3 miles per hour. Stanton played 158 games in 2018, finishing the year with a .266 batting average, 38 home runs, 34 doubles, and 100 RBI. He also struck out 211 times, breaking the Yankees record previously set by Aaron Judge. For the fourth consecutive year, he hit the ball with the highest exit velocity of the season in the major leagues, which was 121.7 miles per hour.
The players with baseball's four highest single-season home run totals have now all homered on the Opening Days following their historic seasons. Stanton joins Barry Bonds , Mark McGwire and Roger Maris . In the exit velocity department, Stanton led the league in the hardest hit ball for three straight seasons . To make it three-consecutive years in the top spot, Stanton hit a ball 121.7 mph in 2018 – his hardest hit home run in the Statcast era. Through Labor Day, the home run rate across the majors was at an all-time high of 3.3 percent, which is to say that about one out of 30 plate appearances ended with a bang.
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Compare that to the 2014 season, when the home run rate leaguewide was 2.3 percent, which works out to one every 43 plate appearances. In other words, we're seeing more than 40 percent more long balls than just three years ago. He was third in the NL in on-base plus slugging percentage (.969; behind Braun and Joey Votto). Stanton, the 2017 National League MVP who led all of baseball with 59 home runs for the Miami Marlins, delivered once again in the ninth inning of a 6-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
He finished the regular season hitting .250 with four home runs and 11 RBI. His homer in the ninth to straightaway center off Tyler Clippard wasn't quite as hard (109.4 mph) as the first, but it did travel farther . When he returned to the dugout following the homer, a camera caught Stanton getting the silent treatment from teammates. So, he high-fived the air, as if pretending to celebrate with them. Both of Stanton's shots were sights that Yankees fans had eagerly been hoping to see since the team traded for him in December.
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Another home run would give Stanton his third multi-homer game of the month. You can follow along on our GameTracker to see if he has it in him. Stanton was on his way to first base when Rehak called it a strike, pushing the count to 3-2 with Gleyber Torres on first base in Friday afternoon’s bottom of the first. NEW YORK – Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees’ dugout and a sold out Yankee Stadium crowd had judged Cleveland starter Shane Bieber’s 3-1 cutter as low, for ball four.
His 17th home run in August tied the National League record for home runs in that month, jointly held by Willie Mays and Sammy Sosa . He’s one behind the all-time MLB record for home runs in August, set by Rudy York back in 1938. And he has four games left in the month, so it’s possible he could even reach Sosa’s NL and MLB record for home runs in any month . Giancarlo Stanton hit the first home run of his career on June 18, 2010. At just 20 years old, it took the outfielder nine games after being called up to the big leagues to mash his first homer. Although there is no hard data, based on what players have said, the all-or-nothing theory seems to be the one that, aside from the JBT, has the most traction in clubhouses.
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As an example, let's look at Whit Merrifield of the Royals, who has 17 homers in 521 plate appearances this year. That works out to a 3.3 percent rate, which just so happens to be on par with the league rate of 3.3 percent. So Merrifield's 2017 HaRP would be 3.3 divided by 3.3, which works out to 1.0. In other words, by 2017 standards, Merrifield is a league-average home run hitter. Anyone whose HaRP is less than 1.0 would be a subpar long-baller; anyone who's above 1.0 would be super-par .
In fact, it was the first time Stanton played more than 150 games, which was a major factor in his ability to compile lots of long balls. But perhaps even more important was his plate discipline that season. On June 17, Stanton hit his 361st home run during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays, tying Joe DiMaggio as the 84th Yankees player on the all-time list. However, it took Stanton 1,800 fewer at-bats to achieve this feat. On June 25, Stanton hit a ground ball for the final out of a Houston Astros combined no-hitter, the first no-hitter pitched against the Yankees in 19 years. The Yankees finished the season at 100–62, eight games behind the Boston Red Sox, clinching a wild card spot.
And something they hadn't seen since 1963, when Joe Pepitone was the last Yankees player to have multiple home runs on Opening Day. There were 21 teams that drafted at least two players before the Marlins finally snared Stanton. Every team except Houston, which had no top-100 selections that year, passed on the chance to get Stanton — and most of those teams had multiple chances. San Diego and San Francisco each took six players while Stanton was on the board; Washington, Toronto and Texas each took five. The Marlins didn’t even use their first pick on Stanton, going instead with Matt Dominguez in the first round. Kluber, teammate Carlos Carrasco, Kershaw and the Royals’ Jason Vargas led the way with 18.
He scored more runs than he had in the last two seasons combined, and raised his batting average by 41 points. A single he hit on Sunday measured at 122 mph, MLB’s Statcast said, calling it the game’s hardest-hit ball since at least 2015. On August 27, Stanton became the first player since Chris Davis in 2013 to hit 50 home runs in one season. Stanton also became the sixth player in MLB history to reach 50 home runs before the end of August. During the August 29 game versus the Washington Nationals, he hit his 18th home run of the month, tying Rudy York for the most home runs in August, set in 1937.
At the end of the season, Stanton had 56 career home runs before his 22nd birthday , which matched Alex Rodriguez and was behind only Ken Griffey Jr. among players in the past 40 seasons. "Timing is so important to a hitter, but for a guy with his talent, his power, once he gets on time, he's deadly. All day long, he was winning pitches." The previous fastest exit velocity at the park was held by Judge (113.6 mph). Before this season, the Marlins team record for homers was 42 by Gary Sheffield in 1996. Stanton’s career best for homers was 37, in 2012 and again in 2014. Of those taken before him, 21 have played fewer than 100 games in the majors and 27 never made a big league debut.
Stanton won the NL Player of the Month Award for August, leading the major league with 18 home runs, 37 RBI, 28 runs scored and .899 slugging percentage. Stanton hit his 57th home run and drove in four runs on September 23 versus Arizona, giving him 125 RBI on the season, and passing Preston Wilson's franchise record of 121 set in 2000. Enhancing the cachet of Stanton's historic season, ESPN ranked Marlins Park as one of the six most difficult stadiums in which to hit a home run in 2017.
Stanton said he will have a very simple approach when it’s time to sit down with Jeter and the new Marlins leadership. In his fourth at-bat of the contest – with New York already pulling away – Stanton turned on a hanging slider from right-hander Blake Treinen, curling a moonshot around the foul pole in left for a solo shot. Believe it or not, Stanton went on to hit another walk-off grand slam in a Marlins uniform two years later against the visiting Seattle Mariners. It allowed the Yankees to sidestep the pesky Guardians, head to Houston for an immediate date with the Astros in Game 1 of the AL Championship Series Wednesday.
One decade ago Thursday, one of the game's best sluggers went yard for the first time. When it finally landed in the never-never land of the right-field stands, the Yankees led, 3-0. The Guardians had to put away the Four Corners and play catch-up instead, and that was going to be an impossible order on this night, with Nestor Cortes sharp and the Yankees’ bullpen rested.
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