Jake McCarthy's two-run single lifts Diamondbacks past Giants

SAN FRANCISCO — Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo replayed the moments in his mind, from Daulton Varsho’s game-changing catch to Jake McCarthy’s go-ahead single, from Stone Garrett’s impressive debut to Geraldo Perdomo’s clutch double play.

“Young players,” Lovullo said, “grew up today.”

A day after a knee-to-the-gut loss to the San Francisco Giants, the Diamondbacks responded on Wednesday night with a resounding, 3-2 victory at Oracle Park, doing so with contributions from the young players scattered throughout their lineup.

Garrett, making his major league debut, doubled in the fourth for his first career hit and RBI, then doubled again in the eighth to set the stage for the tying and go-ahead runs to score on McCarthy’s base hit two batters later.

In the bottom of the inning, Varsho made a running, lunging catch, ranging far into the deepest reaches of the San Francisco outfield to take an extra-base hit away from the Giants’ J.D. Davis. He then popped up, pumped his fist and let out a celebratory scream.

In the ninth, Perdomo turned a tricky double play on the Giants’ Mike Yastrzemski. Shifted to the right side of the infield, he fielded Yastrzemski’s ground ball, raced to the bag and threw to first in one motion.

“It’s awesome to see,” Diamondbacks right-hander Zach Davies said of the the young players’ contributions. “It’s a lot of guys that are up here and playing like their lives depend on it. They’re giving it 100 percent every game. They’re putting the work in beforehand. You can obviously see it’s paying off.”

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Garrett struck out in his first at-bat, chasing fastball up and out of the zone from the Giants’ Carlos Rodon, but he reflected later on the fact that he felt surprisingly calm given the circumstances. He said he reminded himself before his second at-bat not to get away from his approach at the plate, and in the fourth, he crushed another high fastball — this one in the zone — into right-center for an RBI-double.

“I put a good swing on it,” he said. “I felt prepared. Everything I did leading up to this point prepared me for today.”

Less prepared was Garrett's dad, Greg, who did not pack a jacket on his trip from Texas and wound up buying a Giants sweatshirt at the ballpark to stay warm in the chilly San Francisco conditions.

"We'll get him some D-Backs gear," Stone Garrett said.

Trailing 2-1 with runners on second and third in the eighth, McCarthy came to the plate as a pinch hitter and drove a Dominic Leone slider into right for a two-run single. He chased a low slider on the first pitch but worked the count to 2-1 before delivering the go-ahead hit.

“I had a feeling with guys in scoring position he was going to go offspeed there,” McCarthy said. “He threw a pretty good slider low and in. I was trying to be aggressive. I just didn’t want to make that mistake twice, so I tried to see him up. I think that pitch I hit got a pretty good chunk of the plate and I just tried to put a good swing on it.”

A night earlier, the Diamondbacks led by a run with the bases empty, two outs and two strikes in the ninth. They still found a way to lose. They came out on Wednesday and evened the score, in a sense.

Garrett, 26, was on his first day in the big leagues. Varsho is in his second full season in the majors, Perdomo his first. McCarthy has about a half-season’s worth experience.

“Especially on the heels of what we had to go through last night, this group came out and got refocused and reloaded,” Lovullo said. “I’m not saying they’re fully grown up, but this was one of those moments where I felt like this team relaxed when they had to and executed at a very high level at the most critical time of the game. This was a big win today.”

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Jake McCarthy's two-run single lifts Diamondbacks past Giants