Stanton crushes HR No. 400

Giancarlo Stanton's first home run of the season - and his first as member of the Merrill Creek Mudskippers - was the 400th of his DMBL career.

The 34-year-old became the 15th player in DMBL history to hit 400 HRs and passed Carlos Beltran with 399. The round-tripper came off Green Lake's Chris Sale, a 3-run blast in the 5th inning of last night's 5-2 win at home, their 6th game of the young season.

Stanton currently is the active leader in HRs, but has former Allentown teammate Mike Trout hot on his heels (397) ready to join the 400-HR club. Next up on the all-time HR list is the recently retired Nelson Cruz (405) and Mike Piazza (406). He will have to be more than a platoon DH if he wants to catch Sammy Sosa (446) and Vlad Guerrero (447) to break into the Top 10 anytime soon.

Drafted by Hoboken in the 5th round of the 2010 draft (61st overall) as an ineligible prospect when he was known as Mike Stanton, he hammered 29 homers in his rookie season of 2011 and another 27 HRs in 2012 before a deadline deal sent him to Philly for SP Roy Halladay and a 6th round pick.

A year after winning the 2016 Mitchell Award with Allentown, Stanton was traded ahead of the 2018 protected deadline to Marietta for SS Didi Gregorius, 1B Mark Reynolds, and RP Matt Albers. He had an equally impressive first season in Marietta when he mashed 59 HRs (1 short of his career-best 60 in 2016), setting career highs in AB (649), H (163), R (110), RBI (144). Surprisingly, it's the last time he eclipsed 100 RBI, and only the third time in his career (along with a 98-RBI season in 2017).

Fun fact: "Parmigiancarlo" missed only two games in four seasons from 2015 through 2018. Other than that stretch, his high-water mark has been 125 games (2014). He missed the entirety of the 2020 season and returned to play in 120 games the following year.

Stanton also entered 2024 ranked 5th all-time in strikeouts with 1,975 - just 25 short of 2,000.