ATLANTA _ One night after he became the 10th active member of baseball's 2,000-hit club, Nick Markakis joined the 163-homer club.
Ok, it's not quite as prestigious a group, but Markakis' 163rd home run was a big one, a three-run shot in the sixth inning Friday that sent the Braves to a 5-3 win against the Marlins at SunTrust Park in a series opener previously dominated by the Marlins' Giancarlo Stanton.
Stanton hit two home runs totaling 901 feet against knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, a majestic 477-foot solo shot in the fourth inning that was easily the longest homer in SunTrust's brief history and a two-run homer in the sixth that gave the Marlins a 3-1 lead.
But just when it looked like the Braves would go quietly to their 11th loss in 13 games, they came alive in the sixth against Marlins starter Adam Conley.
The left-hander had faced just 13 batters (one over the minimum) from the second through fifth innings after giving up a run in a hitless but sloppy first inning in which the Marlins were charged with two errors and could've had three.
The Braves had only one hit and two Tyler Flowers hit-by-pitches against Conley through five innings, but Brandon Phillips led off the sixth with a single and one out later Flowers also singled. Next up was Markakis, who worked the count full before hitting a home run to the right-field seats, drawing a roar from a crowd of 35,914 and turning a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 Braves lead.
Atlanta added an important cushion run in the seventh when Lane Adams hit a leadoff pinch-hit double and scored on Phillips' one-out single.
Markakis' homer was just his sixth of the season and first in 16 games since July 18, but in his past nine games he's 12 for 27 (.444) with four extra-base hits and six RBIs. That included career hit Nos. 2,000 and 2,001 in Thursday's 7-4 loss to the Dodgers.
Markakis, a 12-year veteran, became the 285th player in major league history to reach the 2,000-hit standard and said he relished being able to do it at the home ballpark with his family in attendance, but only wished it could have been in a win.
One night later, Markakis was the biggest reason for the series-opening win against the Marlins.
Dickey (7-7) had no trouble with anyone with one huge _ literally and figuratively _ exception in Stanton, who raised his total to a major league-leading 35 home runs with his 26th career multi-homer game and eighth of the season.
Dickey allowed three hits, three runs and one walk with three strikeouts in six innings and improved to 3-2 with a 2.22 ERA in his past nine starts, after going 1-3 with a 6.23 ERA in his previous eight.
Stanton's first-pitch homer to start the fourth inning was majestic mashing of the highest order, a drive estimated at 477 feet that one fan seated nearby said hit the block wall so hard he thought it was going through. He destroyed a 78-mph knuckleball, hitting it 30 feet longer than the previous longest at SunTrust Park, Phillips' 447-footer on April 15.
Stanton's two-run homer in the sixth inning came on an 0-1 knuckleball and landed some 10 rows up in the left-field bleachers, a 424-footer relative chip shot for the Marlins slugger, whose eight multi-homer games this season is just one fewer than the Braves' team total.
