When Corbin Carroll‘s go-ahead grand slam left his bat in the bottom of the eighth inning on Wednesday night, he was not sure if it was gone.
But he did see the Statcast metrics pop up on one of the scoreboards at Chase Field.
“I looked up at the exit velo and the launch angle in right field,” Carroll said, “and I was pretty sure.”
Carroll’s deep fly off New York Mets closer Edwin Díaz had just enough on it to get over the right-field fence. It turned a 5-4 deficit into an 8-5 lead. Instead of a potentially crushing loss in which the Diamondbacks squandered a 4-0 lead, they notched yet another comeback win.
Carroll’s game-winner was his second homer of the night. His first came in the fourth inning, a 440-foot shot off Mets starter Luis Severino. That was Carroll’s longest batted ball of the season, and the second-longest of his career.
At a time when the Diamondbacks are missing three key position players in Ketel Marte, Christian Walker and Gabriel Moreno due to injury, Carroll has stepped up.
“I’m not trying to carry the team,” he said. “I’m not trying to be the hero. I’m just trying to do something to help the team win every day. That’s been the goal. And being back in a space where I’m able to do that right now — or just give myself a better chance to do that — it’s felt rewarding.”
With two homers on Wednesday, Carroll matched his home run total from the first 87 games of the season in a single day. Yes, that’s right: Carroll had two homers all year entering play on July 7.
Since then, the 24-year-old has clubbed 15 dingers. His OPS in that span is .977. His slugging percentage is .638. After a first half that felt hopeless at times, he looks like a superstar again.
“He’s a fast learner,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “It was a matter of time before he figured it out.”
Charting Corbin Carroll’s dramatic turnaround
Even after a three-hit game against the San Diego Padres on June 6, Carroll’s OPS still sat at .575. He seemed to be trending in a better direction, but he wasn’t satisfied.
After that game, he was asked about the mental challenges that accompanied his slow start.
“It’s been pretty terrible,” Carroll said. “But you gotta show up and put on face. And these other guys in this clubhouse, this staff, they deserve it. But I’d be lying if I said that this year hasn’t been pretty terrible.
“I always try and stay super process-oriented, but I’ve never really underperformed like this. It’s been really challenging to just trust it and just keep working every day. There are times where it feels like you can’t find the right answer.”
And for a while, Carroll continued to search. After stringing together a few solid games in mid-June, he hit just .214 with a .662 OPS over the final 17 games of the month.
Several troublesome trends had emerged. Carroll was often over-striding with his front foot. His swing was less synced up as a result. He was hitting more infield pop-ups than ever, in part because his swing path had gotten alarmingly flat.
Then, around the end of June, Carroll’s at-bats started to look better.
“We could see that some of the things were taking place inside of his at-bats,” Lovullo said, “checking off pitches, good swing planes, a nice, fluid swing that wasn’t so tight with an arm bar, whatever those things that he was working on.
“We could see it, and the data was showing and supporting that he was coming out the other end.”
According to SwingGraphs, Carroll’s swing got noticeably less flat in July, with an average vertical bat angle (VBA) of 23 degrees compared to 19.6 degrees in June. Last year, Carroll’s average VBA was 26.5 degrees.
Carroll said that his turnaround is a result of a couple of mechanical tweaks, as well as a better approach and more confidence.
“Just doing a better job of just controlling my backside better, not losing it, not over-striding as much,” Carroll said after Wednesday’s game. “Those are all things that are kind of fluid and change throughout a season, a week, at-bat to at-bat, pitch to pitch. So just, I think, got some stuff I’ll look for there on the video and see where that’s at.”
For the season, Carroll is now slashing .225/.311/.414 with 17 homers, 60 RBI and 21 stolen bases. Those numbers are a far cry from where they were a year ago, when he unanimously won the National League Rookie of the Year Award and finished fifth in NL MVP voting. Still, they represent a vast improvement from two months ago.
Even with Carroll turning in a subpar season overall, the Diamondbacks have hardly struggled to score. Following Wednesday’s game, they led baseball with 712 runs scored. The New York Yankees are a fairly distant second place at 678 runs.
But that offense was always meant to be built around Carroll. He was the engine that powered the Diamondbacks’ offense last year, a season that ended with an NL pennant. And it appears that he is, in fact, back to the player he was a year ago.
With Carroll turning his season around — and both Marte and Walker expected back from injury potentially as soon as next week and Moreno at some point before the end of the season — the best version of the Diamondbacks’ offense could still be yet to come.
“It feels good to play well,” Carroll said. “Beginning of the year was very much a grind. It felt like I didn’t take a breath until the All-Star break really.
“From there, was able to get my feet under me a little bit and come out and have a strong second half. But yeah, first half, I wouldn’t say it feels like five years ago. I think there was some great lessons learned from it. I hope to keep it somewhat fresh.”
Top photo: Owen Ziliak/The Republic
