MIAMI _ The resounding blast Giancarlo Stanton needed to keep his Home Run Derby title defense alive came a week late.
The ball launched Monday off the auxiliary scoreboard in left had the look and sound of some of the monster shots by the derby competitors last week, as if a batting practice lob served by his buddy Pat Shine.
This was hit off a fastball from Jerad Eickhoff for two-run homer in the first inning, and Stanton followed it up with a solo shot in the fifth off the Phillies right-hander to push his National League-leading total to 28.
With Justin Bour reprising his derby display with an upper-deck, two-run shot off Eickhoff, the Marlins' slugging duo had the firepower for a victory that eluded them last week at Marlins Park, but this one a team effort, 6-5, in a series-opener against Philadelphia.
Still it took Dee Gordon to provide the decisive stroke for a walk-off win with a two-out single with the bases loaded off Mark Leiter, Jr., in the 10th inning after Derek Dietrich tripled with one out.
Reliever David Phelps escaped a one-out, bases loaded jam in the eighth with back-to-back strikeouts of Brock Stassi and Daniel Nava. He bounded off the mound with a fist pump after his full-count knuckle-curve froze pinch-hitter Nava.
Stanton's pair of homers were what he needed in the final seconds of the first round of the derby when he came up a homer short of Gary Sanchez, 17-16, for an early exit in the contest Yankee slugger Aaron Judge went on to win at Marlins Park.
Bour also lost by a homer against Judge in the first round, 23-22.
Marlins pitcher Tom Koehler was happy to have these hit on his behalf. They took him off the hook after he gave up the lead supplied by Stanton's first homer when the Phillies score four runs with two outs in the third.
Stanton's first blast was Home Run Derby worthy, leaving the yard in a flash at 115 mph off the bat, according to MLBAM's Statcast, which projected it at 441 feet. It didn't get that far as the scoreboard near the foul line above left field got in the way.
It was the second instance Stanton has hit that scoreboard. The previous, on May 22, 2012, was one of the most memorable homers in the five-plus seasons at the ballpark, when he darkened several of the electronic panels with a grand slam belted off 49-year-old Jamie Moyer of the Rockies.
The board took the pounding without damage Monday.
The multi-homer game was Stanton's sixth of the season and 24th of his career. He hit another high drive that fell just short of the home run sculpture and was caught by leaping left fielder Cameron Perkins while colliding with Odubel Herrera in the seventh.
Bour's 21st homer carried farther than Stanton's into the first row of the second deck in right-center, 446 feet according to Statcast. It also erased the damage of the sort of interminable inning that has been Koehler's frequent downfall.
Not quite as extreme as the seven runs he gave up while throwing 50 pitches and recording only two outs in the second inning at Milwaukee on July 1.
This time Koehler got the first two outs in the third on eight pitches, then labored through 30 more to close it out.
Trouble started when he issued a two-out walk to Cesar Hernandez. He got ahead 1-2 on Freddy Galvez before the Phillies shortstop reached down and golfed a low fastball the opposite way down the left-field line for a run-scoring double.
That was followed by another walk and an RBI single by Maikel Franco. Nick Williams worked the count full before driving a changeup Koehler left over the plate off the wall in center for another double and two more runs.
Aside from the struggle to record that one out, Koehler had one of his more economical outings of the season. He allowed only one other hit (erased by a double play) while completing five innings.
Take away the 30 pitches he needed to get the final out of the third and he breezed through the other 4 2/3 innings on 59 pitches.
