Stanton in elite company with 400th career blast

NEW YORK -- Giancarlo Stanton bounded up the dugout steps, raising his batting helmet high to acknowledge a standing ovation from the Yankee Stadium crowd. It has been a difficult season for the Yankees' slugger, but this was immediately one of his brightest highlights.

Stanton crushed a two-run homer in the sixth inning for his 400th career home run in Tuesday's 5-1 win over the Tigers, reaching the plateau in the fourth-fewest games in Major League history. His 451-foot missile cleared the left-field bullpen and helped the Yankees to their fourth consecutive win.

“It’s a pretty cool feat,” Stanton said. “I didn’t have a number in mind when I first started this game, but it’s pretty cool to be here now. Keep it going.”

Stanton’s go-ahead drive off right-hander José Cisnero came off the bat at 116.8 mph and needed just 4.6 seconds to land in the outstretched glove of a fan stationed above Detroit’s relievers. It was Stanton’s third-hardest-hit homer of the year, per Statcast, though few ever slug them like he does.

? Every member of the 400-HR club

“He’s as unique as I’ve ever seen, honestly,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He can have those at-bats where his bat breaks in half, and the barrel ends up on the net behind the plate, and the next time [he can] hit it 118 [mph]. I played against Gary Sheffield, who used to hit some rockets at you and hit the ball consistently hard on a line. But G is just unique in his own right.”

DJ LeMahieu also went deep in Tuesday's win, and Gleyber Torres stroked a two-run double as the Yankees returned to the .500 mark at 69-69. Though a nine-game skid seemed to bury the club's postseason hopes, New York finds itself 7 1/2 games back of the third American League Wild Card spot with 24 games to play. Those are long odds, to be sure, but the Yankees will face the Blue Jays and Red Sox head to head this month.

“We got into this little stretch of good play not thinking about [the standings],” said Gerrit Cole, who hurled six innings of one-run ball for his 13th win. “So I think we need to stay right exactly with what we’ve been doing and continue to try to get better.”

With that in mind, the Yankees locked in on Stanton’s achievement, celebrating wildly in the dugout as he rounded the bases.

The 33-year-old slugged his 400th homer in his 1,520th game. Only Mark McGwire (1,412), Babe Ruth (1,475) and Alex Rodriguez (1,489) have reached the milestone in fewer contests.

“It was awesome seeing all my teammates in there excited and having fun with it,” Stanton said. “The curtain call was the cherry on top.”

Fifty-eight players in Major League history have slugged 400 homers, including 10 who accomplished the feat in a Yankees uniform. Stanton joined Carlos Beltran, Lou Gehrig, Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Rodriguez, Ruth, Sheffield, Alfonso Soriano, and Mark Teixeira in that select group.

Stanton’s drive was his 22nd of the year, coming in a campaign in which he has struggled to keep his batting average above .200 while occasionally hearing boos (as recently as the fourth inning on Tuesday).

“[Getting to 400] is definitely a cool little wake-up call,” Stanton said. “It doesn’t change much in terms of how the year’s gone, but we do have about a month left. That’s all I can really focus or pay attention to. There’s still a big hill ahead of us, but we’ve got work to do.”

As Stanton’s drive rocketed toward left field on Tuesday, Cole said that he yelled from the dugout, “Get up!” He’d later laugh at himself; the ball had more than enough firepower behind it to clear the wall.

It reminded Cole of a story from earlier in their respective careers -- July 28, 2013, when Cole was a rookie with the Pirates. During batting practice in Miami, Cole and Stanton were chatting about their shared Southern California roots when Stanton made an odd request: “Could you just give me a fastball down the middle tomorrow? I’m just going to go the other way. I need to find my swing.”

Cole nodded. He was not one to back down from a challenge. The sixth inning arrived, and Cole had already faced Stanton twice. The righty threw that fastball and saw it get crushed -- no harmless single to right field as promised, but a Stantonian blast to deep left, costing Cole the game. Yes, the story was true, a grinning Stanton confirmed. Cole will never let him forget it.

“What a blessing it is for me to have played against such a wonderful talent, and now be on the same side,” Cole said. “He’s a true professional in how he goes about his business and what he brings to the park every single day. He just totally redeemed himself tonight, getting me that win.”