Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll catches Tigers napping with breakaway triple

Corbin Carroll’s start to the season has been underwhelming after the high standard he set for himself as a rookie, but the Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder was aggressive coming out on Sunday.

Carroll took control of the game early, hitting out of the lead-off spot, jumping on the first strike to put the ball in play. He slowed as he approached second base before turning on the afterburners to get to third, seeing the slow relay from Detroit’s defense.

Corbin Carroll forces the issue with ultra aggressive base running and it pays off.

Second triple in as many days

pic.twitter.com/zZAgNO6Aes

— Alex Weiner (@alexjweiner) May 19, 2024

Detroit manager A.J. Hinch thought about challenging whether Carroll was safely at third but elected not to.

After Carroll got the D-backs started, Ketel Marte turned a 1-2 count into a seven-pitch walk before Joc Pederson doubled to get the scoring going, bringing Carroll home and setting Marte up at third. Christian Walker hit the sacrifice fly that brought Marte home, giving Arizona the early 2-0 lead after one.

Carroll had just four hits over his previous 36 at-bats coming into Sunday, with one of them represented by a triple he hit on Saturday.

Arizona manager Torey Lovullo tinkered with the batting order over 10 games from April 24 to May 5 in which Carroll only hit seventh or eighth. In those games, he hit 6-for-35 (.171).

Since returning to the top of the order (batting first or second in all except the 10) on May 7, he was 6-for-41 (.146) prior to Sunday.

After the first-inning triple, Carroll wasn’t getting a lot to hit, including a 3-0 count and a four-pitch walk in his next at-bats.