Carroll's (3-for-5) 1st multihomer game includes slam, solo shot

DETROIT -- They’re a most atypical pairing: the vaunted prospect and the out-of-nowhere sensation, one signed to a nine-figure contract at age 22 and the other not yet eligible for arbitration at age 26. But as one of them started the seventh-inning rally that put the D-backs ahead to stay in an 11-6 win over the Tigers on Friday night at Comerica Park, and the other emphatically ended it, Emmanuel Rivera and Corbin Carroll put on yet another display of the strength that has lifted the D-backs to the top of the NL West.

“We’re very diverse, and we can do it with a lot of different players,” said manager Torey Lovullo. “You look up there and you have a number of players with an OPS over .800, and that’s not by accident."

Carroll hardly needs any explanation. He is a phenom: one of the fastest players in all of baseball, a top-tier defensive outfielder and a fearsome power/contact threat. His grand slam in the seventh, which put an exclamation point on a seven-run inning, was his second homer of the game after a solo shot in the first, marking the first multihomer game of his career.

“He’s checking all of his boxes,” Lovullo said. “He’s getting all the firsts out of the way. … and we’re certainly enjoying them.”

Carroll is batting .307/.391/.575 on the season, and he’s giving every indication that the eight-year, $111 million contract extension he signed this spring could turn out to be a bargain.

“He’s just a very comfortable, smart, athletic baseball player, and he’s letting the game come to him without trying to do too much,” Lovullo said. “He’s built to be successful.”

Less than two months ago, Rivera was a replacement player -- literally. When he joined the big league club on April 25 as the D-backs optioned Jake McCarthy to Triple-A Reno, Rivera was a career .238/.298/.393 hitter. He’d shown some promise hitting in the Minors, but his career Minor League OPS was still just .758.

Now, though, Rivera is indispensable.

After the Tigers tied the game in the bottom of the 6th, Rivera promptly untied it with a booming double, a 104.1 mph shot to the left-center-field gap. It was his second hit of the day after a single in the second. Rivera is batting .367/.404/.490, and while batted-ball luck has certainly played a role, it’s not everything: his xBA, while not quite as high as his current average, is a still-excellent .326.

“[Rivera] has been huge for us all year,” Carroll said. “Seems like he is, a lot of the time, the one that breaks it through for us. Same story tonight. We’ve got a well-rounded lineup, a lot of guys that can put the ball in play, and over the course of the season that adds up to some good things.”

For prospects as highly-touted as Carroll, the key question is almost always whether a player can translate superstar potential into superstar numbers. With his .966 OPS, 13 homers and 18 steals in less than half a season, Carroll is certainly doing his best to answer the question in the affirmative.

Players like Rivera, on the other hand, raise a different set of questions: where did this production come from? How is he doing it? And, perhaps most importantly, can he keep it up?

“For sure [he can],” Lovullo said. “He has an all-field approach; he’s not too pull-conscious, he’s not one-dimensional. He’s seeing the baseball, he’s not swinging at bad pitches. … He’s just grounded and doing what he’s supposed to do, by controlling the zone, controlling the at-bat, and being successful at it.”

The question of sustainability is especially important because of who the D-backs are up against. If Arizona is serious about dethroning the proven, dynastic Dodgers atop the NL West, Carroll and Rivera represent exactly what it’s going to take: a combination of star players doing what they’re supposed to and everyday players doing more than they’re supposed to do.

Carroll will be at the center of it, and if he can keep doing what he’s doing, there’s no ceiling on what the D-backs can accomplish.

“Getting to watch Corbin Carroll these last couple of months has been pretty impressive,” said starter Merrill Kelly. “Everybody probably had some questions, as far as, ‘Was the extension worth it?’ ... I think he’s proven to everybody that he’s worth every penny.”