SI:AM | Giancarlo Stanton Finally Got His Big Playoff Moment

He stepped up as the Yankees’ stars continue to struggle.

Stanton (left) carried the Yankees to victory Wednesday. / Peter Aiken-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I know a lot of people want a Yankees-Dodgers World Series, but I’m glad the Mets kept the hope of a Subway Series alive.

In today’s SI:AM:

💥 Big G’s big game
🇪🇸 Nadal says goodbye
🤔 Time to change the WNBA playoffs?

Just what his team needed

The story of this New York Yankees season has been the team’s struggle to find offensive production from players other than Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. And with neither player knocking the cover off the ball in the ALDS against the Kansas City Royals, the Yankees needed someone else to step up. They got it in the form of Giancarlo Stanton.

The oft-injured slugger, who turns 35 next month, was the key to the Yankees’ 3–2 victory in Game 3, driving in two of the team’s three runs, including a solo homer to break a tie in the eighth inning. He was 3-for-5 with a single, a double and that clutch home run. He even stole his first base since 2020.

“From first at-bat to the last at-bat, I could see how locked in he was,” Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “He was doing his thing all day. I mean, even from in the cage work before the game, watching him swing, you see he was really locked in with his work and everything, so I expected a big day from him today.”

Stanton’s tenure with the New York Yankees has been fairly disappointing. He was acquired in a trade before the 2018 season, a month after winning the NL MVP with the Miami Marlins. He had a solid first season in pinstripes, but the subsequent years have mostly been marked by injuries, and after posting the worst season of his career in 2023 (.191 batting average and an OPS+ of 87), it was fair to wonder whether Stanton was cooked.

Stanton bounced back this year, though, raising his OPS+ to 115, and was the Yankees’ most reliable hitter not named Judge or Soto. He missed about a month’s worth of games in June and July with a hamstring injury, and the Yankees went 10–18 in his absence. He’s a flawed player, especially with how often he strikes out. He struck out in 31.2% of his plate appearances this season, the highest K rate of any full season in his career. But he’s still capable of incredible displays of power, and on Wednesday night in Kansas City, he put used that power when it mattered most. He smoked a double in the fourth inning with an exit velocity of 114.1 mph that allowed Soto to score from first. The home run came with the game tied 2–2 in the top of the eighth on a slider below the bottom of the zone. Stanton somehow managed to get underneath it and send it 417 feet over the wall in left.

Big G. Big Blast. 💪 pic.twitter.com/8YlH5EATKZ

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) October 10, 2024

“It wasn’t a bad pitch,” Stanton explained. “Just got under the shape, was on time and was able to scoop it out.”

Wednesday night was the 30th postseason game of Stanton’s career, but the go-ahead homer was his first signature playoff moment. Although he had hit 11 postseason homers before Wednesday night’s game, only one of them came in a game the Yankees won by fewer than four runs: a second-inning solo shot against Cleveland in Game 2 of the 2020 wild-card series that cut the Yankees’ deficit to 4–1. (New York went on to win 10–9.)

Stanton has pretty impressive career postseason stats (his .964 career playoff OPS is nearly 100 points higher than his career regular-season mark of .871), but postseason reputations are built on the ability to come through in the big moments, and Stanton has never been as clutch as he was in Game 3 on Wednesday night. According to Baseball Reference, his big game increased the Yankees’ chances of winning the World Series by 5.37%. That’s just what New York needs as Judge continues to struggle.

Nadal won 22 Grand Slams in his career. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Stephanie Apstein has more on Stanton’s clutch performance in Game 3.

• Rafael Nadal announced his retirement Thursday morning. Jon Wertheim reflects on the incredible career of the Spanish tennis legend.

• With the WNBA Finals on the horizon, Emma Baccellieri wonders if the league has outgrown its current playoff format.

• Big Ten and SEC officials are meeting in Nashville on Thursday for discussions that could shape the future of college football, Pat Forde writes.

• Albert Breer’s weekly mailbag leads with a look at what Robert Saleh’s firing says about other coaches on the hot seat.

• Jimmy Traina picked a great time to have Paul Finebaum as his guest on the SI Media podcast.

• Hurricane Milton tore the roof off of Tropicana Field.

• Here are the announcer teams for every Week 6 NFL game…

• … and here’s who our experts are picking in each game.

• The Saints have decided who will start at quarterback after Derek Carr’s injury.

The top five…

… things I saw last night:

5. Jackson Merrill’s leaping catch at the wall.
4. The Dodgers’ squeeze play to add an insurance run in their win over the Padres.
3. Canadiens goalie Sam Montembeault’s 48th and final save of the night to finish off a 1–0 shutout over the Maple Leafs. It was the most saves in a season-opening shutout in NHL history.
2. Quinn Hughes’s clutch play for the Canucks. He blocked a shot on an empty net and then assisted on J.T. Miller’s game-tying goal. (The Flames went on to beat Vancouver in overtime.)
1. Francisco Lindor’s go-ahead grand slam to send the Mets to the NLCS.