Giancarlo Stanton is struggling, but the Marlins are doing fine

Wednesday night, right fielder Giancarlo Stanton returned to the Miami Marlins lineup after a seven-game absence. He’d been out due to soreness in his right side, which he’s been dealing with since the end of May. In his first game back, against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Stanton went 0-for-3 with one walk and two strikeouts. That brought Stanton’s 2016 triple slash to .210/.324/.471 with 63 strikeouts.

Those numbers are really not great. As Mark Townsend wrote last month, Stanton is stuck in the worst slump of his career, and that hasn’t changed. He’s striking out a ton, and his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is well below his career average. Of course, it’s hard for a player’s BABIP to improve when the ball is rarely put into play.

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You can watch the mighty Giancarlo Stanton try to get his groove back when the Marlins take on the Pirates at 7:10 pm ET, and you can watch it for free since it’s Yahoo Sports’ MLB Free Game of the Day! You can stream it on Yahoo’s Sports Home, MLB index and video home. Local blackouts apply, according to MLB rules.

Stanton’s right side soreness might be related to his outfield collision with teammate Marcell Ozuna, which happened on May 15. Injuries always have a way of finding Giancarlo Stanton, who has missed significant time in several seasons due to knee and hamstring injuries. The collision might explain his nosedive since the 15th (nine games, 37 plate appearances, .097 average), but not his struggles prior to that.

What’s really surprising about Stanton’s huge slump is that the Marlins are doing fine. With a .271 batting average, the Marlins currently have the fifth highest team average in the entire league. They’re 28-25 overall, and they finished both April and May with records over .500. They’re third in the National League East, just 1.5 games behind the second place New York Mets.

How is that possible with Stanton slumping and Dee Gordon suspended? Other players have stepped up. They have four regular starters batting over .300 right now (Derek Dietrich, Martin Prado, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna), one batting .299 (J.T. Realmuto), and their fourth outfielder is hitting .314 (Ichiro Suzuki, whose resurgence I wrote about last week). In fact, out of every regular position player on the Marlins, Stanton has the lowest average on the team by far.

Even though Stanton’s slide has continued this far into the season, it’s hard to imagine it lasting the whole time. Stanton is a young, talented player, and he’ll find his way out of this. And when he does, if that lineup can keep raking, the Marlins could be very, very dangerous.

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