Stowers' whirlwind '25 swirls on with latest accolade: NL Player of the Month

MIAMI – For the second time in less than a month, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough called a team meeting to deliver good news to outfielder Kyle Stowers.

In mid-July, McCullough announced that Stowers earned a spot on the National League All-Star team. On Sunday, he revealed Stowers had been named NL Player of the Month for July.

“When I found out yesterday, the first thing I did after, I went back into the weight room and started getting my body ready to play yesterday's game,” Stowers said prior to Monday’s 8-2 loss to the Astros at loanDepot park.

• All-time Player of the Month winners

Stowers hit .364/.451/.818 with 16 runs, five doubles, 10 homers and 20 RBIs in 24 games in July, leading NL qualified hitters with his 1.269 OPS and 239 wRC+. He also paced all NL qualifiers in RBIs and slugging, while he was tied for first in fWAR (1.8), ranked second in average and on-base percentage and tied for second in home runs.

The 27-year-old Stowers set club records for slugging percentage and OPS for July, and his 10 homers were the most for a Marlins hitter in July since Giancarlo Stanton had 12 during his NL MVP Award-winning 2017.

“What a month, just reading through, you get caught in the day to day,” McCullough said. “Kyle does so much for us within series, within games, to help us win. You knew it was good, but you lose track a little bit about how impressive it was.”

The award was Stowers’ first monthly MLB honor and the first for a Marlin since Stanton in August 2017. He became the fifth player in franchise history to capture the award, joining Jeff Conine (June 1995), Hanley Ramírez (June 2008), Emilio Bonifacio (July ‘11) and Stanton (also May 2012 and June 2015).

In the series before the All-Star break, Stowers returned to Baltimore, the organization that drafted him in 2019 and called him up to the big leagues from ‘22-24 before dealing him to Miami a year ago. All he did was produce a career-high five-hit performance that included three homers on July 13.

Stowers followed that up with a memorable showing at the Midsummer Classic. He led off for the NL in the inaugural “Swing-Off,” going deep once on three swings, as the NL would go on to defeat the American League.

To begin the second half, Stowers knocked two taters for his fifth multihomer game of the season and became the first player in franchise history with five home runs in a two-game span. He joined Ty Cobb (May 5-6, 1925) as the only players to record at least eight hits, five home runs and 11 RBIs in a two-game span since RBI became an official stat in 1920.

“Oh gosh, I was going to say this week with the Yankees, but that was August,” Stowers said of his most memorable moment. “Going back to Baltimore was really cool. The All-Star Game was really special. Getting to see my family and to achieve something like that was really cool. Our [15-10] record was really good in July. I think it's just been fun what we've been doing on the road.”

If the Marlins and Stowers keep this up, he could find himself in the thick of the NL MVP conversation. Not too bad for a player who compiled a 68 OPS+ through his first 117 MLB games and nearly didn’t make the 2025 Opening Day roster after a rough spring.

“What I love about Kyle is, I don't think it'll ever get too far removed from Kyle that he struggled in the Major Leagues,” McCullough said. “No matter how well you do, there's always a chance that maybe that rug could get pulled out from under you, and I think that's a good thing. Just keeps you always hungry, never allow complacency to seep in.”

Added Stowers: “That's something that for me is fear of failure, fear of getting exposed, all those types of things are very real for me. And so the fact that I've been able to lean on my faith, lean on my loved ones, lean on the coaches and kind of stare at that adversity head on and keep going and kind of think of more of the opportunity than the threat, I'm very proud of that.”