Giancarlo Stanton Hits 55th Home Run, the Highest Homer Total in a Single Season Since 2006

Giancarlo Stanton is back to his home-run-hitting ways…

The 27-year-old part-Puerto Rican professional baseball player, a slugger with the Miami Marlins, slugged No. 55 on the season in the team’s 13-1 rout of the New York Mets.

Giancarlo Stanton

Batting third for the first time this year, Stanton’s three-run shot came off Mets right-hander Matt Harvey in the fourth inning.

It ended a six-game, 29-at-bat home run “drought” for the Marlins outfielder. That was the most games Stanton had gone without hitting a home run since a 14-game span from May 9 to 24.

“I thought he looked better, obviously,” manager Don Mattingly said.

Stanton’s homer total is the highest since Ryan Howard hit 58 in 2006. He added a run-scoring single in Miami’s seven-run fifth inning.

Stanton came into the game batting .147 in his previous 19 games. He has been rested and held out of the starting lineup three times in the past 10 games, including Sunday, when he asked to sit out. The break helped, he said.

“For sure, at this point,” Stanton said. “Early in the year when you have a day off, you kind of feel sluggish afterward. With all the miles we’ve tallied up through the year, it feels good to have them now.”

Familia Receives $3.3 Million Raise from the New York Mets

Jeurys Familia is getting a hefty raise…

The 27-year-old Dominican professional baseball pitcher has received sizable raise from the New York Mets while still awaiting news whether he’ll be suspended by Major League Baseball under the sport’s domestic violence policy.

Jeurys Familia

Familia will make $7,425,000, according to multiple reports, up from $4.1 million last season.

Starters Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom, who both had season-ending surgery, also settled on one-year contracts and avoided arbitration. Harvey got a raise to $5,125,000 from $4,325,000 and deGrom’s salary increased to $4.05 million from $607,000, according to reports.

Familia led the majors with a franchise-record 51 saves last season.

Last month, a judge dismissed a charge stemming from a domestic violence complaint against Familia after the reliever’s wife told a prosecutor that her husband did not hurt her. MLB has said its investigation is ongoing.

Familia had been charged with simple assault and had pleaded not guilty after his wife, Bianca Rivas, made several frantic 911 calls to Fort Lee, New Jersey, police on the morning of October 31 in which she described her husband as “drunk” and “going crazy,” according to excerpts of a transcript published by NJ.com. Rivas was left with scratches on her chest and a bruise on her right cheek.

But the judge dropped the charge after Prosecutor Arthur Balsamo said he met with Rivas and her lawyer. Balsamo said Rivas told him that the scratch came from the couple’s 1-year-old child and the mark on her cheek came from leaning on it.

A first-time All-Star last year, Familia has saved 94 games over the past two seasons for the Mets, but he’s also had a couple of costly hiccups in the postseason. He gave up a tying home run to Alex Gordon in the 2015 World Series opener against the Kansas City Royals, and a tiebreaking homer to Conor Gillaspie in the ninth inning of a loss to the San Francisco Giants in the 2016 National League wild-card game.