HARTFORD, Conn. — Sitting in the Hartford Yard Goats dugout, Cole Carrigg admits it’s hard to not keep up with what is going on in Denver.

The third-ranked prospect for the Colorado Rockies, Carrigg is slated to lead off a Sunday series finale against Harrisburg and coming off a night where he smacked his 14th home run of the season. It’s part of a homestand where he has hit .389 and knocked in seven runs.

Those are numbers that will turn heads and have people thinking about when Carrigg might make an impact on the Rockies.

The 23-year-old outfielder knows his numbers and is eager to see when he will take the next step in his professional career. For now, however, on this Sunday as the grounds crew prepares the field, Carrigg balances expectations with reality.

“You have to keep your focus here,” said Carrigg, who leads Hartford in hits, home runs, RBI and stolen bases, among other categories. “It’s tough not to try to play GM or whatever and just try to think about what should be happening. There are so many things that you are not in control of, and so many different things behind the scenes, things that you don’t even know.

“It’s just trying to stay where your feet are. You just can’t look to the future. As soon as you start doing that, that’s when things start going south for you.”

Keeping things from going south is something that Carrigg is trying to do more of during his first full season at the Double-A level. While he entered Sunday’s play on fire at the plate, he was also coming off a road trip where he went 2-for-25.

“That’s the hardest part, being consistent,” Carrigg said. “I think having throughout two and a half years of pro ball now, there are a lot of valleys. It’s just knowing that those are going to happen, and it’s okay when they happen.”

For Carrigg, even down moments at the plate doesn’t mean that he can’t impact the game in other ways.

The second-round pick of the Rockies in the 2023 MLB draft now has 40 stolen bases on the season, adding to Hartford’s single-season franchise mark for steals in a campaign. He was the first player in club history to log 30 stolen bases before the All-Star break and hasn’t stopped his aggressive ways on the basepaths since.

Included in those numbers is an August 1 game against Reading when he stole second, third and home in the span of just six pitches.

“I try to get biggest lead I possibly can without giving myself up too much to get picked off,” Carrigg said of his on-base philosophy. “If the pitcher has a decent leg kick and is about 1.3 (seconds) to the plate or anywhere around there or above, I think I have a good shot.

“I’m just trying to anticipate good counts and good pitches. If I anticipate that he’s going to throw an off-speed pitch, I always try to do that”

It’s part of an aggressive mentality that Carrigg has in all phases of his game. Entering Sunday, he had 15 outfield assists in 674.0 innings in center field, using an arm that drew rave reviews at the MLB Draft Combine when he registered consecutive throws from the outfield of 101 and 102 mph.

To put that in perspective, when Carrigg did that in 2023, only 22 throws from MLB players since Statcast data became available in 2015 had been clocked at 102 or higher.

Yet, the overall aggressiveness is also something that Carrigg knows he must temper at the plate to keep advancing through Colorado’s minor league levels.

“It’s definitely a tricky part for a player like me,” Carrigg admitted. “I have a tendency to give some chase and be a little too aggressive at the plate. It’s just trying to hone that in and be good with your approach and what you’re trying to do in the box.”

That’s part of the learning process for a prospect like Carrigg, and it’s also one of the things he focuses on as he waits to see when he’ll trade in his Yard Goats jersey for one with the Isotopes or even Rockies.

“Having good weeks and bad weeks is part of it,” Carrigg said. “Sometimes you play good for a couple weeks and you think, ‘You know, maybe my shot could possibly be coming.’ But you can’t let yourself get in that head space. You just have to stick with where you are and enjoy what you have going on and just have fun. It will happen when it’s supposed to happen.”