Corbin Carroll Bluntly Calls Out Diamondbacks: ‘We’re Not Playing the Way We Need To’
Corbin Carroll is running out of patience with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and he is not hiding it.
The star Diamondbacks outfielder used the word “scuffling” to describe his own team after a 3-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday at Chase Field. That is not the type of vibe you want coming from your best position player heading into the second half of the season.
“Kind of scuffling would be the word I would use,” Carroll told Alex Weiner of Arizona Sports. “I think we’re not playing the way that we need to play if we want to be in a position where we’re going to do something with this season.”
Fair point. The Diamondbacks are 44-45 and have dropped six of their last nine games. They are stuck in the mud in a division led by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who show no signs of slowing down, and the path to a wild card is getting steeper by the week.
The numbers back Carroll up. Arizona sits 26th in Major League Baseball in team OPS at .689 through Sunday. The pitching staff is 18th at a 4.28 ERA. When you rank in the bottom third of the league on offense and in the middle of the pack on the mound, you are not going to sneak into the playoffs.
The Diamondbacks are the same organization that reached the World Series in 2023 and returned to the postseason in 2024. There is talent on this roster. What there is not is consistency, and that is the frustration Carroll aired publicly on Sunday.
You can see why he is annoyed. Carroll is producing. He is doing his part. But baseball is a team sport, and if the guys behind him and around him are not showing up, the wins do not come. Star players have every right to speak up when they feel the season slipping.
The next two weeks of the schedule are going to define this team. Arizona plays a series against the San Diego Padres and then closes out the first half against the Dodgers. Win those series and you are still in the mix. Get swept and you are looking at sell mode by the deadline.
General manager Mike Hazen has some tough calls coming. If the Diamondbacks are not competitive by late July, players like Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, and Eugenio Suarez could all be moved. That would be a hard reset on a roster that had championship level expectations back in March.
Carroll himself is not going anywhere. He is signed through 2031 on the team friendly extension he took two years ago, and he is the face of the franchise for the long haul. But he is watching a season slip out of the team’s hands, and he is doing what any young superstar should do in that spot. He is speaking up.
What Torey Lovullo and the coaching staff do with Carroll’s comments is up to them. Take it as a call to action from the leader of the room. Or brush it off and keep the same routine and watch the season die.
The next couple of weeks in Phoenix should tell everyone which direction Arizona is going.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
