Judge, Schwarber ... Carroll? D-backs star among heavy hitters after 2-HR night

SAN FRANCISCO -- Corbin Carroll may not look the part of a power hitter, but look at the Major League leaders in home runs and just behind sluggers Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber you’ll find the Diamondbacks outfielder.

Carroll hit a pair of homers Monday night to lead the Diamondbacks past the Giants, 2-1, at Oracle Park.

It was the third multihomer game of the year for Carroll, who has 13 homers on the year, one behind co-leaders Judge and Schwarber.

"I think it’s not necessarily like a focus of mine this year in terms of trying to hit home runs,” Carroll said. “Just trying to hit a bunch of balls hard on a line, and so that's kind of where I've been judging myself. And I feel like when I'm doing that a bunch, that the homers kind of follow. But again, just not trying to get too caught up in hitting the ball out of the ballpark because for me, I feel like that leads to some easy outs.”

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No one can accuse Carroll of being an easy out.

Carroll’s first homer off Justin Verlander was a fastball that he hit the opposite way into the left-center-field seats in the third inning.

"I think up to that point, I'd done a pretty good job of keeping him in the zone, so hitter’s count, he kind of had to come to me and gave me a fastball, pretty good fastball, to hit,” Carroll said. “Just was able to not do too much and put a good swing on it, put it out the other way."

Per MLB.com's Sarah Langs, since the 2024 All-Star break, Carroll has the fifth-most homers in the Majors, trailing only Judge (38), Shohei Ohtani (37), Schwarber (33) and Carroll's current teammate, Eugenio Suárez (32).

His second blast on Monday came two innings after the first, against a Verlander sweeper.

"I haven’t been feeling too great recently, so to have those two swings on two different pitch types was awesome to see,” Carroll said.

Now when Carroll says he hasn’t been feeling great recently, he’s referring to going 1-for-16 in the recent four-game series with the Dodgers at Chase Field, hardly much of a slump.

But when you’ve had the kind of start to the season that he’s had, well, that qualifies.

Right-hander Merrill Kelly, meanwhile, allowed just one run over seven innings against San Francisco. He scattered eight hits and did not walk a batter while striking out eight in his longest outing of the year.

"Anytime you put up two runs as an offense and win the game, that’s just an incredible job by our pitching staff,” Carroll said. “The job Merrill did going at guys, going deep in that game was great to see.”