SEATTLE — Long after the game had ended, the Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll sat in front of his locker at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, still in uniform, seemingly lost in thought. This was two years ago, the last time the Diamondbacks visited his hometown. Carroll was struggling for the first time in his professional career and could not find his way out.
With the Diamondbacks’ return here this weekend, Carroll is amid far different circumstances. He is off to a fast start at the plate, producing about as well as any hitter in the league. And his team is winning, entering the weekend having won five in a row and 10 of 11.
While second baseman Ketel Marte’s scorching stretch has received more attention, Carroll has been a hot hitter himself, going 25 for 71 (.352) with five doubles, four triples and three homers over his past 19 games. His season numbers — including a .293 average and a .945 OPS that ranks third in the National League — are particularly impressive when accounting for the fact that he opened the year still playing through discomfort in his right hand, on which he had hamate surgery in February.
Thinking back on his last series in Seattle — which was his second time in as many years playing at T-Mobile Park, where he was the starting left fielder in the All-Star Game in 2023 — Carroll said the experience was still memorable even if the timing was imperfect.
“I obviously wish I was playing better, but I was excited,” he said. “It was every kid’s dream to get to play in the park you grew up going to. I was just trying to figure things out. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I need to play well in front of these people.’ It was just that things weren’t going well.”
He wound up pulling himself out of his funk sometime in the middle of that year, the result of a series of swing changes that helped correct mechanical issues introduced during the offseason. It was an experience that hitting coach Joe Mather believes has helped Carroll to this day.
“I just think he learned how to work out of something like that,” Mather said. “Being so young and moving so fast, he never really had a stretch like that.”
Carroll has had no such stretches this year. He thinks he has “done a good job of managing the way teams have attacked me,” including by making quicker adjustments.
“I think that’s been a big piece of it,” he said. “I’ve also felt good mechanically at the plate. I feel like I’m putting myself in a good position to see the ball. I feel like a combination of some of those things has led to the success so far. I’ll also say I feel like I’ve been getting a little lucky, too. The actual numbers are a little better than the expected.”
Carroll was referring to the fact that his wOBA — weighted on-base average, a sort of all-in stat that measures a player’s total offensive contributions — is better than his xwOBA, which is his “expected” wOBA based on his exit velocities and launch angles.
“I do feel like the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) has been high and sometimes that’s not something you can fully control,” Carroll said. “But I feel like I’ve done a good job of hitting enough balls on a line and probably a little less fly ball this year, as well.”
Still, most of Carroll’s expected numbers are above his career norms.
“I feel like his swing has been really short,” Mather said. “He’s playing the situations, not only to do damage but to get hits when it calls for it. He’s so dynamic. He can hit doubles, triples and homers to kind of any part of the park. He’s kind of showing that full range right now.”
Like last time, Carroll is expecting a good chunk of family and friends at the ballpark this weekend to support him. He is again leaving ticket distribution duties up to his mom, Pey-Lin.
“They reach out to her and they all get tickets through her and they get a group sitting together,” he said. “I think there’s a group on Friday and Saturday that will be there and it’s just fun to know they’ll be there cheering me on.”
