Giancarlo Stanton’s big night spoiled as Marlins fall to Mets
They sang “Happy Birthday” for birthday boy Adeiny Hechavarria when he hit his first home run of the season in Atlanta the other day. They gave Martin Prado obligatory high-fives when he hit his first one out here on Thursday.
But when Giancarlo Stanton walloped his first homer of the season — a milestone blast that thrust him atop the Marlins’ all-time home run list with 155 — his teammates gave him the silent treatment upon his return to the dugout.
They didn’t say a word, didn’t even acknowledge him. At least initially. Stanton caught their schtick and grinned. Then they mobbed him. The celebration ended there, however.
That’s because the Mets spoiled Stanton’s big night by overcoming a 3-0 deficit to hand the Marlins a 7-5 loss at Citi Field that dropped Miami to 3-7 on the season.
“I’ll enjoy it later,” Stanton said of his home run. “Three and seven is the only record I know right now.”
Stanton’s 155th home run as a Marlin put him all alone at the top of the team’s all-time list, one in front of Dan Uggla.
Stanton put his name in the team’s record books by tagging a 3-2 Dillon Gee fastball into the Mets bullpen. The blast was his Stanton’s since Sept. 8, only three days before his season ended in Milwaukee when he was hit in the face with a pitch.
To put Stanton’s franchise mark in perspective, it took him 644 games to reach 155 homers. It took Uggla 776 games to get to 154.
“There’s only 30 of them, so it’s good company to be with,” Stanton said of owning a team home run record. “Keep it going. Make it hard to beat.”
Stanton’s two-run shot and Prado’s solo homer gave the Marlins and starting pitcher Jarred Cosart a 3-0 lead. But the Mets’ Wilmer Flores got it all back with one swing of the bat in the fifth, a three-run shot that tied it.
It was only the third home run hit off Cosart in his 75 innings since joining the Marlins last July.
After the Marlins re-took the lead on Marcell Ozuna’s bases-loaded walk in the sixth, the Mets came up with two more off Cosart following leadoff hits in the inning by Lucas Duda and Michael Cuddyer.
“Just completely lost it there at the end,” Cosart said. “A guy hitting a buck forty [Flores], I threw a fastball down the middle, and he did what he’s supposed to do with it. Then I just threw a horrible curve ball to Duda and a horrible curve ball to Cuddyer, and that was it for for me.”
But then came one of the strangest plays of the season so far for the Marlins.
After Ichiro Suzuki reached on a one-out triple in the seventh — the first pinch-hit, extra-base hit of his career — he came barreling down the line on Dee Gordon’s hard grounder to second. When Daniel Murphy came up with the ball quickly and fired home, Ichiro stopped in his tracks, thinking he would be thrown out.
Only Murphy’s throw was so off target that Suzuki reversed course and made a second run for the plate. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud made a sweeping tag that home plate umpire Eric Cooper thought grazed Suzuki for an out. But Suzuki, after first missing the plate with his hand, reached out and touched it again.
The Marlins challenged the ruling and after a review that lasted 5 minutes 44 seconds, the call was overturned.
Alas, it all went for naught.
Mike Dunn issued a pair of one-out walks in the seventh, and they ended up costing him when he gave up an RBI single to Duda and an RBI infield hit to Cuddyer that gave the Mets a two-run cushion.
This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 11:26 PM with the headline "Giancarlo Stanton’s big night spoiled as Marlins fall to Mets."