Carroll (hip tightness) improving, available off bench

PHILADELPHIA -- The bad news for the Diamondbacks is that outfielder Corbin Carroll was out of the starting lineup for a second straight game Friday night.

The good news is his tight left hip flexor was feeling better and he was expected to be available off the bench Friday and possibly back in the lineup Saturday.

Carroll felt something when he was rounding second base while legging out a triple in the seventh inning of Wednesday night's game against the Mets. Carroll stayed in the game and did not start feeling it tighten up until after it ended.

"Definitely, feels better," Carroll said before Friday night's game. "Definitely in a better spot today. Hopefully it's continuing to trend the right way."

Carroll, who played in his 500th big league game Wednesday, had a pair of doubles and the triple. The first two games of the series with the Mets were played with wind chills in the 30s.

The team did not have any imaging taken of the injury, a sign that they do indeed believe it is not serious or something that will keep him out long term.

"We're grateful that he's feeling better," Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. "We felt very strongly that was going to be the case, but you're always kind of holding your breath, wondering if he's going to wake up the next morning and have some positive news for us and he did."

The plan was for Carroll to go through a normal pregame routine Friday and be available off the bench. Lovullo revealed that Carroll was not available Thursday night in New York.

There is some confusion as to what may have caused the tightness. As he rounded second going for his triple, Carroll's helmet flew off and hit the back of his leg. Whether that knocked him off stride or not is hard to know.

"I had two separate coaches say that they saw me running weird from second to third," Carroll said. "I didn't notice it, but it all kind of lines up. I think just between the cold, the helmet, to maybe taking a weird step, kind of aggravated that hip flexor a little bit."

Carroll missed a large part of Spring Training due to a broken hamate bone just prior to the first full-squad workout of the spring. He rehabbed the injury quickly, and it hasn't hampered him at the plate, where he was slashing .333/.408/.690 entering Friday.

Carroll has been the engine that has made the Arizona offense go this season. Of the Diamondbacks' 52 runs scored, and he had scored nine and driven in 11.