LOS ANGELES – In just shy of a month in the Majors, Cole Carrigg has brought a max-effort game and a live-wire personality. Those traits were on display during an 8-7 loss at Dodger Stadium on Monday night.
It was a game that Carrigg nearly willed the Rockies to victory.
The switch-hitting Carrigg -- Colorado’s No. 6 prospect according to MLB Pipeline -- doubled twice as part of a 3-for-5 night. The second two-bagger, off lefty Tanner Scott, drove in two runs to tie the game in the top of the ninth. He scored the go-ahead run in the 10th on a play at the plate that led to the benches – and the Rockies’ bullpen – emptying to join what turned out to be more a misunderstanding than an altercation.
Afterward, Carrigg smiled with family and friends from his hometown of Turlock, Calif. -- some 280 miles from Chavez Ravine -- and from San Diego State, where he played college ball before the Rockies selected him in the second round of the 2023 Draft. But what is normal for Carrigg, 24, and best for the Rockies, is that he did not finish the night happily.
“I know all the guys wanted this one,” Carrigg said. “I wanted it. I’ve always said that we can play with anybody, we’ve got a great team, everybody picks each other up. It sucks not to get this one. We’ll get them tomorrow.”
The Rockies' ninth-inning burst that featured the two runs Carrigg drove in -- as well as the run he scored in the 10th -- upped the Rockies' run total in the eighth inning or later to a Majors-leading 126.
The way Carrigg handled the tight situation, and how he benefitted from the charge that comes with a California kid playing at Dodger Stadium for the first time, are traits that make him a candidate to be one of the players that at some point will help the Rockies prevail in games like Monday’s.
“He’s proven over and over again that the moment is not too big for him,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “That’s about as big a stage as you can get in a regular-season game, in Dodger Stadium, and he wants it. Two outs in the ninth, game on the line and he delivers.”
Carrigg has an abundance of speed, which he showed on a triple for his first big league hit, and arm strength, which he displayed Monday on a 100.9 mph throw to the plate that wasn’t quite in time to prevent Dalton Rushing from scoring on Shohei Ohtani’s fourth-inning single. Monday marked the 21st time in his 25 games that he has reached base, and he sits at .309 with a .978 OPS.
Over 331 Minor League games before his promotion, Carrigg posted a .283/.359/.474 slash line. Keep in mind that until he hit .338 in 57 games at Triple-A Albuquerque with even left-right splits, he faced so little left-handed pitching that he had less-than-stellar numbers from the right side.
For all his attributes, what he doesn’t possess is a filter.
Throughout his time in the Minors, Carrigg was a threat to change the game with his bat, legs or arms, but also a risk for ejection. That last situation was not the case in Triple-A, and he noted that ABS challenges and replay mean, “I can’t yell at anybody … that’s helping me, too.”
There will be bat flips after homers and dances to commemorate extra-base hits. His bat will be slammed on the field and his batting helmets aren’t safe in the dugout, either.
“The edge to win and to play for me, I will never lose – it will never leave,” Carrigg said. “Being able to manage some of that on tough days is something I’ve worked on even through the Minors. But that’s just how I’m wired. I’ve gotten better at it and will continue to, but that won’t cause me to lose any type of edge.”
All this is OK.
“A huge part is how the veterans basically allow him to do that,” Schaeffer said. “I’ve heard stories where guys come in and veterans say, ‘No, you can’t act like that,’ and they’re not themselves. We’re blessed not to have that.
“These guys all promote guys to be who they are, which is huge for our team and this organization going forward.”
Clear-headed at-bats like Carrigg’s ninth-inning double are the reason the Rockies encourage him to be himself in important ways. Carrigg wanted to hit a fastball. Scott tried to slip in a slider. Carrigg hit it, and gave the Rockies a chance to win.
“I wasn’t really looking slider, but I felt in the back of my mind he might go back to it, just because he got me to swing at it, and he left one over the plate,” Carrigg said. “Today showed that we are always in it.”
And Carrigg doesn’t mind being in the middle of it.