PHOENIX -- Understandably, any time Corbin Carroll exits a game early, Diamondbacks fans get anxious. So, when the All-Star was removed from Sunday’s 10-4 loss to the Blue Jays to start the fifth inning, their concern level was likely high.
The team announced that he was removed due to tightness in his lower back. The television broadcast showed him grimacing after a swing in the bottom of the third inning and then appearing to stretch out his back in right field in the top of the fourth.
Both Carroll and manager Torey Lovullo downplayed any concern, and both said he would have remained in the game if not for the lopsided score.
“He's definitely got some low back issues that have been taking place,” Lovullo said. “You know, I told you guys that there were some things that were happening around his body, but he's just tightly wound.”
Lovullo said as of right now, he has Carroll in the lineup Tuesday following Monday’s team off-day.
“It’s just a little tightness,” Carroll said. “It was enough where, in a game like that, I was fine getting out of there -- but in a closer game, [I] definitely would have stayed in there.”
Carroll missed two games on the team's recent East Coast trip due to tightness in his left hip flexor, and he thinks it’s possible that the hip issue and the back issue are related.
“I felt it a little [Saturday], and then kind of took a swing in the cage [pregame Sunday] where it just locked up a little more on me,” Carroll said. “Felt good about playing today, and just once the game kind of got out of hand, I didn't need to take more at-bats.”
Carroll was replaced in right field by Jorge Barrosa in the top of the fifth inning. After flying out in the bottom of the fifth in his first at-bat, Barrosa hit his second career home run in the seventh.