Miami Marlins: Giancarlo Stanton smashes the hardest hit ball since 2015
Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton ends the season with 59 home runs, but his final hit of the 2017 season was the hardest hit ball in the Major Leagues in two years.
In a career plagued with bizarre season-ending injuries, Giancarlo Stanton has still managed to take the baseball world by storm since his rookie campaign of 2010.
Injuries have plagued the rising star, whose career high in home runs had only been 37, set in both 2012 and 2014.
On the surface that may seem overly critical, but the slugger, if he would have stayed off the disabled list each season, would have most likely eclipsed the 50 home run mark, if not higher, in each of his first full six seasons.
Take a look at the random barrage of injuries that Stanton has endured in his short Major League career:
- 2011 Games Missed: 11 – Right hamstring strain, quadriceps strain
- 2012 Games Missed: 36 – Right knee injury/abdominal strain
- 2013 Games Missed: 44 – Right hamstring strain/left shoulder soreness
- 2014 Games Missed: 17 – HBP/severe facial fracture
- 2015 Games Missed: 92- Left-hand fracture
- 2016 Games Missed: 43 – Left-hand fracture
Coming into the 2017 MLB campaign, Stanton was looking to stay injury free, this time around he was finally able to achieve that goal, playing in a career-high 159 games.
Stanton set career highs in home runs (59), RBI (132), runs (123), while hitting .281, his second-best mark to date.
Stanton cranked up the thermostat during the late summer heat of August, slugging 18 homers in the month, tying him with Rudy York for the August MLB record, only bested by Sammy Sosa‘s 20 home runs June of 1998 for the all-time monthly nod.
He found a way to top that, somehow, saving his best for the last stretch of the season by crushing a laser-shot single for his final hit of 2017, the hardest-hit ball since 2015, measuring with an exit velocity of 122.2 MPH.
Even though not as exciting as a home run, it’s still just as impressive.
Speaking of home runs, check out all of Stanton’s epic moonshots, with a collage of all 59 of his 2017 homers, property MLB.com:
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Most home runs in an MLB season:
- Barry Bonds: 73 (2001)
- Mark McGwire: 70 (1998)
- Sammy Sosa: 66 (1998)
- Mark McGwire: 65 (1999)
- Sammy Sosa: 64 (2001)
- Sammy Sosa: 63 (1999)
- Roger Maris: 61 (1961)
- Babe Ruth: 60 (1927)
- Babe Ruth: 59 (1921)
- Stanton: 59 (2017)
Stanton came up just short of joining the elite club of mashers who have hit 60 home runs in one season, but odds are this is just the beginning for things to come for the All-Star.
The sky is the limit for Stanton and the Marlins, who if they can add a few more key pieces, specifically pitching, could be in contention to win it all within the next few seasons.
Stanton recently stated that he is not interested in a re-build, so if the Miami Marlins organization does not go all-in with bringing him some reinforcements, look for the slugger to trade uniforms and demand a trade to a contender.
If Stanton is able to stay healthy the rest of his career, you best reserve a spot for him in the record books and with a shrine in Cooperstown.