Corbin

Carroll

Carroll gets Sunday off for the series finale against the Brewers. If this is injury-related there’ll be a follow-up, but for now it appears to just be a day of rest for the 24-year-old. Pavin Smith gets the start in right field.

Carroll now has 32 stolen bases on the season. He had 54 steals last season, but that might’ve been a career year. In what is considered an off year for Carroll he has 21 home runs and 72 RBI to go along with the speed. After a rough first three months of the season, he’s done enough to be back on the radar in the first few rounds of 2025 drafts.

Carroll had two homers through 87 games this season. He has 19 in 61 games since. His average (.235) and steal total (29) are still well down from last year, but it’s remarkable how similar to 2023 the rest of his numbers look now, given where he was three months ago.

It’s hard to imagine that Carroll was having a significant — and I do mean significant — power shortage coming into August. Not only was his blast the 19th of the season, it’s the 11th this month for the 24-year-old talent. You can’t erase the struggles of the first few months, but you sure can appreciate what he’s done for you in the second half of the season. Remember the latter more than the former when 2025 drafts comes along.

Carroll homered off Clayton Kershaw right before Kershaw left Friday’s game with a toe injury. The 24-year-old has really shown off the power as of late; which is so nice to see after he struggled to drive the ball earlier in the campaign. He’s up to 18 homers on the year, and 10 of those have come in the month of August.

Carroll took Luis Severino deep for a solo homer in the fourth inning. With the bases loaded, two outs, down by one run in the eighth, he went yard once again with a grand slam off Edwin Díaz to give Arizona the lead. After hitting just two homers through June, Carroll now has 15 since the start of July. The 24-year-old outfielder is hitting .225/.311/.414 with 17 homers, 96 runs scored, 60 RBI, and 21 steals across 553 plate appearances.

Carroll’s home run was his 15th of the season. He hit a two-run shot off Sean Manaea with two outs in the seventh inning. Carroll is 37-for-147 (.251) with 13 home runs, 32 RBI and six steals in his last 41 games. He only has 21 steals in 128 games this year, which is down considerably from the 54 steals he had in 2023. Carroll has recovered at the plate, though, and that’s enough to consider targeting him again in 2025 drafts.

The power has certainly been coming back for Carroll, who now has 12 home runs in 41 games since July 1st with a .870 OPS. He’s hitting under .240 with seven steals over that stretch, so the whole package hasn’t come together at the same time, but given the earlier concerns that Carroll’s shoulder injury from last season was impacting his power, the recent surge of home runs suggests he could be finding his old swing. If the 23-year-old were to continue swinging a hot bat and enter 2025 fully healthy, he could wind up a major draft day bargain.

The home run was Carroll’s 13th of the season. He hit a two-run shot off Tyler Alexander in the eighth inning. Carroll has 11 home runs in his last 34 games. He hit 25 home runs in his rookie year last year and battled shoulder problems in the second half of that season. It’s possible those issues lingered into this season and helped cause his early season power outage. He’s hitting .221 with a .702 OPS and 50 RBI on the season.

Carroll will open Saturday afternoon’s contest on the bench with left-hander Jeffrey Springs toeing the rubber for Tampa Bay. The 23-year-old’s second-half resurgence continued during Friday’s series opener as he clubbed a game-tying homer off Rays stopper Pete Fairbanks to give him nine round-trippers in his last 30 contests.