MIAMI _ There are no superlatives left for the home runs Giancarlo Stanton has been piling up with regularity.
He hits them harder and farther every day.
Friday he connected twice for the ninth time this season, including his hardest-hit of 2017, in the Marlins' 8-6 win against the Padres at Marlins Park.
On Thursday in Philadelphia, the Marlins' slugger extraordinaire hammered one into the wind at 115.7 mph, his fastest exit velocity of the season on a homer.
Stanton somehow made a quantum leap from there when he unloaded on the second pitch he saw Friday from Padres left-hander Travis Wood and launched it at 118.2 mph, propelling the ball 462 feet for his 48th homer of the season.
The next time up he went opposite field for No. 49, just clearing the wall in right-center (395 feet).
The pair of Cruz missiles, the first homers he's hit wearing the name "Cruz" on his jersey for Players Weekend, provided the early impetus for the Marlins rising above .500 at 64-63 for the first time since they were 10-9 on April 26.
It took another big blast from the Big Bear to finish the job. Marcell Ozuna's three-run shot in the seventh, his 30th, wiped out a one-run deficit after the Padres plated four runs in the sixth.
Stanton accounted for the first five Marlins runs (he also scored on Ozuna's homer) while matching his career high with 105 RBIs (2014).
His third at-bat came with the bases loaded and he settled for a two-run double. The crowd sounded disappointed.
Stanton became the first player with nine multi-homer games in a season since Jose Bautista in 2009. He's done it 27 times in his career but has never hit three in a game.
Still, he pushed his Marlins record for homers in any month to 16 with six games remaining in August, and his second-half total to 23 (also a club record).
The numbers have become numbing. The fun part is the resounding impact, following the majestic arc of the ball and then comparing the eye-popping numbers on the Stanton-o-meter.
Stanton's first homer, off an 0-1 fastball from Wood, soared to a height of 96 feet and touched down just short of the exterior windows beyond left field.
According to Statcast, the 118.2-mph exit velocity was the seventh hardest-hit homer measured by the MLB technology and third-hardest by Stanton. (The Yankees' Aaron Judge crushed one 121.1 mph this this season).
It was especially incongruous considering the teams were attired in youth league-inspired uniforms as part of the Players Weekend objective of connecting with young fans.
Marlins' colors for the weekend are variations some of their usual colors, a mid-range blue with neon orange sleeves and lettering; the Padres wore dark blue with bright yellow accents.
Ozuna's homer, off Kirby Yates, was another towering drive to the same vicinity in left as Stanton's, reaching a height of 104 feet but falling a bit short at 425 feet. It had a 107-mph velocity at impact.
The young Padres showed up with some big-league muscle with two homers of their own.
A game after Adam Conley reached a career high with 11 strikeouts, the left-hander was touched for five runs in 51/3 innings while fanning only four.
He was efficient in inducing early contact while breezing the first time through the Padres order on 32 pitches without allowing a hit.
The second time started with a clean single by Manuel Margot, followed by Carlos Asuaje's two-run homer to right.
The same pair of rookies began Conley's demise with hits to open the sixth. He exited after Wil Myers' sacrifice fly cut the Marlins' lead to 5-4, and Jabari Blash greeted reliever Dustin McGowan with a two-run blast to the left of the home run sculpture to give the Padres their first lead.
Blash, who played at Miami-Dade College, is another Padre with minimal experience in the bigs though he goes by the nickname Big Daddy.
But the combined efforts of Big G (the standard) and the Big Bear were enough to deliver a big win for the Marlins in a playoff push that is gaining impetus as the long balls continue to soar.
