PHOENIX (AP) — Corbin Carroll's season got off to a rocky start with a broken hand suffered before the full team even reported for spring training.
The Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder vowed he would be back for the start of the season despite needing surgery.
Carroll lived up to his promise and, outside of a rough stretch to start May, has put together what's shaping up to be the best season of what's already been an impressive career.
“There’s a high
tolerance for pain and then he went out there and just started to squash the baseball," Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. "So it’s a fairly remarkable situation that he’s walked through and he’s having a fantastic year for so far."
Arizona has won nine of 10 with Tuesday's 7-5 win over San Francisco to reach six games over .500 (30-24) for the first time since the final game of the 2024 season. The Diamondbacks' 13 wins since May 9 are the most in the majors, allowing them to save a season that was starting to unravel.
Pitching has played a large part of the bounce back. With Eduardo Rodriguez's effective start against the Giants, Arizona's starters have 16 quality starts their past 21 games.
Ketel Marte's resurgence has helped as well. The three-time All-Star hit a two-run homer against the Giants and has four straight games with at least one hit and multiple RBIs, one off the team record held by Paul Goldschmidt.
There's also been a youth infusion, players such as Ryan Waldschmidt, Tommy Troy and Jose Fernandez giving the Diamondbacks an immediate lift after being called up.
Arizona's run also happens to coincide with a torrid stretch by Carroll.
Since his average dipped to .258 on May 10, Carroll has hit .404 with two homers, four triples and eight RBIs. The 25-year-old had his 13-game hitting streak end against San Francisco on Tuesday, but has reached base in 14 straight games, longest active streak in the majors.
Carroll hit a walk-off single in Arizona's 2-1 win over San Francisco last Thursday and followed that up with two run-scoring triples in a 9-1 win over Colorado on Sunday.
The two-time All-Star is hitting .299 with seven homers, 28 RBIs and 12 doubles while using his speed to cover massive amounts of ground in the outfield.
“Right now, I'm trying to keep it really simple, hunt good pitches, control the strike zone,” he said.
Perhaps the most electrifying part of Carroll's game is his ability to turn doubles into triples.
Carroll has led the NL in triples each of the past three seasons, topping all of the majors the past two. He set a team record with 17 triples last season and is ahead of that pace with eight so far this year — four more than the next closest player.
Carroll's 51 career triples are one shy of Stephen Drew's team record and he has a chance to become the first player in MLB history to lead or tie for the lead in triples in three straight seasons. He's the second-fastest player (537 games) in big-league history to reach 50 triples and 80 homers — he has 89 — behind Yankees Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig, who did it in 461.
“It's really fun to watch for all of us,” Lovullo said.
The hand injury long behind him, Carroll is running free and the Diamondbacks are going with him.
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