PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Corbin Carroll ducked late into the Arizona Diamondbacks’ clubhouse with his uniform pants stained in dirt — two stolen bases will get a player dirty — but was otherwise clean when he was spotted by the rest of his bubbly-bathed teammates.
“Have yourself a Game 7!” jubilant teammates shouted as they chased down the breakout postseason star. “Why are you dry?”
Carroll had little room to escape inside a cramped visitors’ locker room — not that he wanted to — and was soon doused with beer before a victory cigar followed.
World Series trips don’t come often for this franchise in the desert. So when it was time to celebrate, the Diamondbacks did it with the same vigor they used to knock off last year’s NL champs.
Carroll went 3 for 4 with two RBIs and two runs scored, and Arizona advanced to the World Series for the first time in 22 years Tuesday night by stunning the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2 in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series.
“We did it! That’s all I can say,” said Carroll, the frontrunner for NL Rookie of the Year. “Just believe in each other, believe in our guys. We know what we have in that clubhouse, and it’s special. We’ve known it all year.”
Arizona will play the Texas Rangers in an all-wild card World Series no one saw coming, with Game 1 set for Friday night at Globe Life Field.
In their only other trip to the Fall Classic, the Diamondbacks won a seven-game thriller against the New York Yankees in 2001.
The young Diamondbacks, who at 84-78 squeezed into the playoffs as the final NL wild card, completed their comeback from an 0-2 hole in the NLCS. They won Games 6 and 7 in Philadelphia, where the defending National League champions had been 12-2 over the past two postseasons — including 11-0 in NL playoff games.
“I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it again: A connected team is a very dangerous team,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. “No matter what happened in those…
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