MIAMI _ Giancarlo Stanton stepped to the plate and stood on the precipice of history five times Saturday night. Every time, foot traffic on the left-field concourse at Marlins Park slowed to a stop, dozens of fans with assigned seats elsewhere loitering near Stanton's common target and, they hoped, a piece of baseball lore.
He did not homer. Instead, in the Miami Marlins' 10-2 win over the Atlanta Braves, Stanton went 1 for 5. He grounded out to first, grounded out to second, struck out swinging, singled to right and struck out looking in some of the most anticipated moments you'll find in a late-September game between two long-eliminated teams.
The home crowd of an announced 25,264 fans _ the seventh-largest Miami group in 77 home games _ quietly, tensely anticipated each pitch, phone cameras rolling throughout. With each mighty cut came an emphatic, collective aww. After his last at-bat, the fans started to filter out.
Heading into Sunday's season finale, Stanton remains at 59 home runs.
Each of Stanton's next three long balls would carry historical significance.
With 60, Stanton would become just the sixth player ever to reach that mark. The others, among the foremost sluggers in the sport's history, did it a combined eight times: Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Mark McGwire (twice), Sammy Sosa (thrice) and Barry Bonds.
With 61, Stanton would pass Ruth's 1927 total and match Maris' 1961 total. The latter stood for decades as baseball's single-season record.
With 62, Stanton would set a new high for homers in a season by a player who is not tainted by performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds (73 homers), McGwire (70, 65) and Sosa (66, 65, 63) are all tied heavily to baseball's Steroid Era, those six Maris-beating seasons all coming between 1998 and 2001.
"It was a long time, 61 was that number," manager Don Mattingly said this weekend. "Obviously that got broken, but I don't know if everybody quite looks at it the same as they would have if it happened in a different time."
Stanton didn't get No. 60 Saturday, but one of his teammates did. Dee Gordon stole two bases to reach 60, passing the Reds' Billy Hamilton (59) for the major league lead with a day to go.
Gordon also went 3 for 4, bringing his hit total on the year to 200.
"That's a big accomplishment," Mattingly said Saturday afternoon. "Two hundred hits in a season is a lot of hits."
Gordon is the first player with 200 hits and 60 stolen bases in a season since 2003, when Juan Pierre did it for the Marlins. Gordon and Pierre are also the only Marlins to record 200 hits twice.
Right-hander Odrisamer Despaigne tossed seven innings and allowed two runs, both in his final frame. He struck out six while scattering seven hits and a walk. He also snared a pair of line-drive comebackers.
Miguel Rojas finished 4 for 5, a homer shy of the cycle. Derek Dietrich's three-run home run in the first inning gave the Marlins a big early cushion against Atlanta rookie Lucas Sims (two innings, six runs). Brian Anderson reached base four times (two doubles) and made a diving catch on a liner toward third.
