Just a pair of games ago, Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Jake McCarthy was hitting an even .000. Each at-bat was a struggle of its own. But on a thrilling Saturday night, the speedster inked his name into the credits of 2025's most heart-stopping victory to date.
It had already been a long journey to McCarthy's first base hit of the year. Rewinding to Wednesday, April 9, the lefty hitter had begun his season in a franchise-record 0-for-24 slump. On that day, however, McCarthy got into his first hit — a double to the left-field gap.
Cheers thundered around Chase Field from the home fans in that moment, while the Diamondbacks' dugout erupted in unison for their teammate's long-awaited success.
"For him to finally have that success was a big moment in the dugout," manager Torey Lovullo had told reporters after Wednesday's game. "We all shared it with him. ... He comes out every day. Whether he's doing well or not, he's a great teammate."
As inspiring as McCarthy's first hit of the season was, it came in the fifth inning of a game Arizona led 5-0. On Saturday, the stakes climbed much higher.
Over the first 17 innings of a series against the Milwaukee Brewers, the Diamondbacks had yet to plate a run. They had not recorded a base hit with runners in scoring position since the date of McCarthy's first hit — all the way back to Wednesday.
McCarthy entered in the eighth inning, pinch-hitting for Randal Grichuk against right-hander Nick Mears. McCarthy put up a fight, seeing seven pitches, but was called out on strikes for the inning's first out.
Then came the ninth.
With one out, Gabriel Moreno worked a walk. Alek Thomas followed with an impressive RBI triple. With Garrett Hampson and Corbin Carroll on deck, Brewers manager Pat Murphy quickly turned to closer Trevor Megill to finish the game.
But Megill couldn't find the zone, walking Hampson on four pitches. He then served a perfect fastball to Carroll, who brought home two runs on a 111 MPH double to pull the game within one. Geraldo Perdomo then worked a walk of his own.
With Carroll serving as the tying run at second base, it was up to McCarthy to come through in the biggest moment of his season — a season that had been going anywhere but the direction he had hoped it would.
It might have been easy to fall victim to the pressure of that moment; to stare at the first pitch or two, simply attempting to avoid creating an easy out.
But McCarthy didn't falter. He confidently turned on the very first pitch he saw — a 98 MPH fastball on the inside edge of the zone — and lined a perfectly-placed single to the right field gap, bringing home the tying run and putting the winning run at third base with one out.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. then finished off the improbable comeback, walking off Milwaukee with a sac fly. For a player like McCarthy, who had struggled so much to open the year, it was a deeply fulfilling sequence of events.
"It feels good when you can impact the outcome of the game," McCarthy told Diamondbacks On SI's Jack Sommers postgame. "I think that's where you want to be in a situation like that. My teammates did a great job of getting me up there. I think there were four or five incredible at-bats beforehand. I'm glad they passed the baton to me, I'm just glad I could pass to [Gurriel].
"[Megill] was a little wild, but I figured he was pretty desperate to get ahead. He's got a really good fastball, I figured he was going to it and I just wanted to hit it on a line somewhere in the middle of the field, and I was able to execute.," McCarthy said.
Baseball is a difficult game for anyone — star, platoon-member, farmhand or otherwise. But for McCarthy, it's maintaining consistency and keeping a positive outlook that guides him through the season's most taxing stretches.
"This game's hard. You never want to start a season like that. I think slumps are inevitable in this game. But I think how you handle it, and just having good perspective won't make the game any harder. So I try to be the same guy every single day. And it's easier said than done when maybe the result isn't there and you think you aren't performing how you want.
"But you're always one big hit away, one at-bat away from a different outcome. Just trying to stay even-keeled. It's a long season," McCarthy said.
It isn't as if McCarthy is immune to the frustration. However, baseball provides nothing if not an abundance of opportunity. McCarthy said he looks at each chance as its own isolated instance, rather than thinking of what could have been in previous at-bats.
"It's certainly frustrating in the moment, when you have bad at-bats and you think, 'I could have come through for the team there,'" McCarthy admitted. "It weighs on you a little bit. But when your next opportunity comes, it doesn't matter. That last at-bat has nothing to do with the previous at-bat in the eighth inning when I struck out."
McCarthy's poise in that big moment, and his ultimate delivery of the crucial knock impressed his teammates and manager alike.
"Jake stood out to me," Carroll said to reporters after Saturday's win. "I feel like anytime it's a situation like that, confidence isn't maybe the highest. To be able to get the job done, I think that can be big moving forward.
"I think the results might not be there right now, but I feel like he's found some things right now that he's working on that are going to lead to success. He's a proven baseball player, and he can do it at this level. He's shown that many times, and that's what I'm expecting the rest of this year," Carroll said.
McCarthy's manager didn't hold back the praise, either.
"I was just so proud of Jake because of the things that he's been fighting and grinding through, and it's a matter of time before he figures it out. And this just was a great moment for him to get that big hit," Lovullo said.
Lovullo relayed the story of a pregame conversation with his struggling player in his postgame press conference.
The skipper said they had been shagging balls in the outfield during BP. He had just had his regular check-in with Arizona's pitchers, before he stopped to talk with McCarthy. Lovullo said he was impressed with McCarthy's maturity and mental state in that moment.
"I had a nice conversation with him [Saturday] during BP, and just the things he was saying tell me that he's still engaged and paying attention to the right things," Lovullo said.
"He's trusting the coaching. He just seemed like he was emotionally in a really good spot. He wasn't down. He was smiling. We were laughing throughout the conversation from some of the personal things we were talking about, and then it got fairly serious.
"I just wanted to check in on him and he was able to share exactly where he was, which the thoughts were extremely mature. It's a matter of time before he figures this out, and he has started to figure it out. [Saturday night's hit] was a really big knock for him," the skipper continued.
Lovullo said he felt that McCarthy would put forward a quality at-bat in the ninth inning.
"I could tell by the swing plane, the balance, the bat speed, that I just felt like he was going to give us something that was going to be a certain quality. ... Something that inspires the team as much as he did feels really good on a personal level," Lovullo said.
And while McCarthy's batting average still reads .097, and his OPS sits at .246, perhaps the true beauty of the game is that none of those numbers mattered in that crucial moment.
No one's stats, slash lines or analytics made any difference when Perdomo crossed home plate on Saturday. Nothing mattered, except the numbers in the run column at the end of the night — and McCarthy's signature will forever be on Saturday's number.
"When you're hot, yeah, sure, you just think you're going to go up, you're going to get a hit every single time. But... whether I haven't had a hit in a while or I'm on fire, I just try to be the same person, and I just think it helps for when times like this happen," McCarthy said.
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