Giants pitchers victimized by Stanton in loss at Miami.
Marlins slugger blasts MLB-high 43rd homer
MIAMI >> Giants manager Bruce Bochy tensed up and flinched his folded arms when asked how he would approach Giancarlo Stanton, who is in the midst of one of baseball’s hottest and most sustained power streaks in years.
“I’m not going to tell you how we’ll pitch him,” Bochy said during batting practice Monday. “You’re careful. I’ll leave it at that.” The Giants were not careful enough. Stanton tagged Ty Blach for a two-run home run in the first inning. He hit an RBI single on a two-strike, two-out breaking ball in the fourth. Even his outs were the stuff of wonderment in the Giants’ 8-3 loss at Marlins Park on Monday.
Stanton has hit a home run in five consecutive games, and seven of his past eight. Going back a bit further, he has 10 homers in his past 11 games and 22 in his past 34.
His 43rd home run set a Marlins franchise record and leads
the major leagues by a wide margin — even dwarfing the 35 homers that the Yankees’ Aaron Judge has hit this year.
The Giants haven’t had a right-handed hitter club 43 home runs since Matt Williams in the strike-shortened 1994 season.
Afterward, Blach sat at his locker with a look of numb confusion. He checked the video and determined that the pitches that hurt him were not egregious.
“We were trying to get inside on him,” Blach said. “He’s been extending and hitting it the other way. I thought I made a decent pitch. He’s just such a strong guy. … He just adds that ability to change the game with one swing.”
He wasn’t alone. Marcell Ozuna added his 27th home run, a solo shot in the fifth inning, and the road-weary Giants simply didn’t have the muscle to keep up.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever match what (Barry) Bonds did in the time he dominated,” Bochy said. “But Stanton is in one of those streaks. Very few elite power hitters have done what he’s doing. He’s seeing the ball very well, he’s laying off pitches and he’s got better plate coverage. He changed his stance and that’s serving him well.”
What stance will the Marlins’ pending new ownership group take? Will Derek Jeter and Co. seek to rebuild their roster around Stanton, who is owed $295 million over the next 10 seasons, or attempt to clean the slate by trading the largest payroll obligation in baseball history?
The Giants will be listening. They have made consistent inquiries about Stanton over the years, and they are in need of a quick fix as ownership has tasked the front office with retooling a last-place team into a contender in 2018. Their most glaring deficit, though not their only one, is a lack of right-handed power. In every baseball sense, Stanton represents a fit.
It is no easy task to build a contending club when one megastar is swallowing up such a massive chunk of the payroll. The Giants know something about that from the Barry Bonds years. They’ve also been successful at it.
Even if Jeter’s group pivots toward trading Stanton, it’s guesswork whether they would seek out a trading partner willing to haul the biggest chunk of the contract, or if they would prefer to deal with a team that could offer the best package of prospects or major league-ready players.
More likely, it would be a combination. A template might be the massive trade that sent Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees in 2004, when the Texas Rangers received Alfonso Soriano and Joaquin Arias while agreeing to pay down $67 million of $179 million.
This is when you stop and realize: the Dodgers have the largesse of prospects as well as the deep pockets — and that Stanton, who has a full no-trade clause, grew up in the San Fernando Valley attending games at Dodger Stadium.
And you realize: the Marlins’ willingness to trade Stanton is just as likely to widen the gulf between the Giants and Dodgers as it represents a means toward closing it.
Stanton, 28, will average $28.5 million over each of the next 10 seasons; there is a $10 million buyout on a $25 million option for 2028, when he will be 38 years old. He also can opt out of his contract after the 2020 season.
There is inherent risk in any long-term contract, and Stanton has played in 120 games just twice in his career.
But watch the spectacle, imagine those mammoth shots hitting the base of the soda bottle at AT&T Park instead of a lime green backdrop, and you reflexively reach for your wallet.
• Second baseman Joe Panik took a pre-planned day off and passed concussion tests for a second time after getting his helmet knocked off by a thrown ball Sunday, but GM Bobby Evans acknowledged the seven-day concussion list is a consideration. … Matt Cain will make a spot start in Wednesday’s series finale.
• At least the Giants will be better rested and have Madison Bumgarner on the mound when the series resumes Tuesday. They basically played three games in a 24-hour span over the weekend at Nationals Park, including a split doubleheader Sunday that delayed their arrival to their Miami hotel until almost 5 a.m. Monday.
Pablo Sandoval was the only player to start all three games in Washington and also take the field Monday at Marlins Park. He picked up a single while batting right-handed.