Ten days ago, he was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week. Now, Dallas Carroll will be joining a long list of injured Utes with a broken foot he sustained last weekend in Arizona. He’ll be watching from the dugout as Utah takes on Washington State in a three-game series starting today.
“We hate to see Dallas [Carroll] down,” said head coach Bill Kinneberg. “It hurts our ball club.”
The Utes (12-13, 2-7 Pac-12) will be looking to rebuild when they face the Cougars (16-11, 3-3 Pac-12). They’ll work on rebuilding their confidence, momentum, infield and pitching rotation.
“We don’t have as much flexibility in our infield to Trey [Nielsen] or TJ [Bennett] against left-handers, which we’ll see [today],” Kinneberg said. “Another injury is just an opportunity for somebody else. That’s the way we are going to view it and move forward.”
Bennett will be replacing Dallas Carroll at third base. Normally he plays first base in tandem with the left-handed Nielsen. Bennett has confidence in the hot corner, though, and it’s nothing new to him.
“I’ve played kind of played everywhere growing up,” Bennett said. “My whole freshman year I played third base so it’s not too big of an adjustment. Hopefully I’ll be able to help them out — big shoes to fill.”
Utah is dealing with a depleted pitching staff as well. After four strong outings, starting pitcher Brock Duke won’t be taking the mound for the rest of his senior season because of an injury. Tanner Banks is still out of the starting rotation as well, but the Utes expect to have him back next week. Mitch Watrous has been moved from a relieving role to starting for the Utes since Duke went down, and he’ll be starting again today. Utah will also rely on another dominant performance from freshman starting pitcher, Dalton Carroll, on Saturday. He threw six innings of shutout baseball versus the defending NCAA Champions last week in Arizona.
Despite Dalton Carroll’s performance last weekend, the Wildcats still managed a sweep over the then-streaking Utes. Bennett said one of the keys to getting back on the plus side of the ledger will be enjoying the game.
“I think we’re just going to focus on having fun and playing like we did when we were in Little League — just going out and playing to win,” Bennett said. “We’ve just got to go out and take it one pitch at a time, and we need to turn things around as a team.”
Utah’s speed might also help turn things around versus Washington State. They’ve had success on the base paths, accumulating 47 stolen bases and 12 triples for second best in the conference in both categories.
In their last home game against BYU, Dallas Carroll said the crowd helped lift them to victory in dramatic fashion. Fans can come out now to enjoy the game against Washington State for free simply by wearing black for the “Black Friday” promotion. Utah has every expectation of getting back on track versus Washington State.
Today’s and Saturday’s games start at noon at Spring Mobile Ballpark, followed by a 6:30 p.m. start on Sunday for “Family Night”.