The Diamondbacks’ Jake McCarthy took the biggest swings of the night – one during the game, another after it.

After connecting on a three-run homer that keyed an 8-2 win over the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night, July 1, at Chase Field, McCarthy called out those have given up on the Diamondbacks’ season during an interview on the team’s television broadcast.

“Let people doubt,” McCarthy told postgame hosts Todd Walsh and Josh Collmenter. “I welcome it. Our team welcomes it. The people who want to count us out, who think we’re done, they don’t know (expletive). They don’t know (expletive). I’ll just leave it at that.”

With that, McCarthy smiled, took off his headset and headed back to the home clubhouse.

On a night like this, it was easy to see the source of McCarthy’s optimism.

Right-hander Zac Gallen looked like his former, front-of-the-rotation self, firing seven sharp innings with 10 strikeouts. The offense connected for four homers, rallying from an early deficit, moving in front and continuing to tack on runs. And the Diamondbacks made a handful of slick defensive plays, including cutting down the Giants’ Rafael Devers at home for a momentum-shifting out early in the game.

Still, the skepticism that surrounds the Diamondbacks comes from a reasonable place. Their starting pitching has been mediocre at best, their bullpen awful, their defense inconsistent. The deficiencies have offset an offense that, despite getting hit by injuries in recent weeks, has continued to pile up runs.

It has left the Diamondbacks hovering around the .500 mark just past the halfway point of the season — which has left fans on social media calling for the team to sell at this month’s trade deadline.

That, of course, is something they might do. But it is also something they likely won’t decide to do right away, meaning there might still be as many as four-plus weeks remaining for the Diamondbacks to stave off that reality.

If they get more performances like they got from Gallen, they just might be able to prove McCarthy right.

Gallen allowed just two runs (one earned) on five hits and no walks. He retired the final 12 batters he faced. The performance stopped what had been a four-start stretch in which he had allowed at least four runs in each.

Gallen sounded encouraged, but even describing his tone as cautiously optimistic might be strong. He was asked at least three times some form of, “Could this be the start that turns your season around?” and his answers ranged from, “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know” to “Uh, yeah, a little bit, maybe.”

Given the way his season has unfolded, Gallen’s hesitancy is understandable. He had struggled mightily in recent weeks, entering the day with a 6.97 ERA over his past nine starts. On the season, he had allowed more runs than any qualified major league pitcher and led the league in walks.

He had also had a handful of dominant performances – outings not unlike this one against the Giants – that hinted at better days ahead, only to backslide in subsequent starts.

“I don’t want to say I’ve necessarily found something,” Gallen said. “I feel like that’s getting more into – for lack of a better word – (being) results-based maybe.

“I’m just trying to stay in the process of trying to keep making pitches and the dam will break at some point. It will turn. We’ve just got to keep making pitches. I’m not necessarily being guarded, but I don’t want to put the cart in front of the horse, really.”

The one thing Gallen came back to at multiple points during his postgame session with reporters was the rhythm he was in with catcher James McCann. Of the 101 pitches Gallen threw in the game, he said he called only one of them; he could not recall shaking off McCann.

“I think a lot of it goes back to trusting James,” Gallen said, “and what he was throwing down and what he was feeling and just trying to execute pitches.”

McCann, who signed with the Diamondbacks last week after opting out of a minor league deal with the Braves, has caught each of Gallen’s past two starts.

“I’ve had to stand in the box and face him as a hitter and it’s not a fun at-bat,” McCann said. “One of the things I’m trying to get across to him is, just because the first half hasn’t gone the way the other five years of his career has, hitters aren’t racing to the bat rack to face him. He’s still got good stuff.”

McCarthy blasted a three-run, go-ahead shot in the fourth inning off Giants right-hander Hayden Birdsong, who had walked each of the first two batters of the inning on four pitches before serving up the homer on a 2-0 pitch.

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (two-run homer), Randal Grichuk (solo) and McCann (solo) added homers of their own.

The Giants scored twice off Gallen in the second – one run resulted from an errant throw that somehow sneaked past two cutoff men – and threatened to score in the third, but Alek Thomas’ throw home on Wilmer Flores’ single to center beat Devers to the plate for the third out of the inning.

“I think,” Gallen said, “that was definitely a momentum shift.”

—Nick Piecoro

DBacks to sign Jake Woodford

The Diamondbacks are signing right-hander Jake Woodford to a major league deal, a source said, a move that helps shore up the club’s pitching depth after an avalanche of injuries in the big leagues and in Triple-A Reno.

To make room for Woodford on the roster, the club will option right-hander Juan Morillo to Reno.

Woodford, 28, has pitched parts of five seasons in the majors, most recently with the Pittsburgh Pirates last year. He has spent this season in Triple-A, splitting time with the New York Yankees’ and Chicago Cubs’ top affiliates. In 61 innings at that level, he owns a 4.55 ERA.

—Nick Piecoro

Veteran Manicini, Aces part ways

Veteran Trey Mancini was released by Triple-A Reno on July 1, an opt-out that gives Mancini the opportunity to sign with another major league team.

Mancini, 33, was hitting .308 with 16 home runs, 16 doubles and 62 runs batted in for the Aces this season, in 74 games played.

The former longtime Baltimore Orioles slugger has not played in the majors since 2023, when he appeared in 79 games for the Chicago Cubs. Mancini was with the Diamondbacks in spring training earlier this year.

-Jose M. Romero

Josh Naylor in and out of July 1 lineup, Corbin Carroll taking swings

The Diamondbacks had Josh Naylor back in the lineup on Tuesday, July 1, which was to be his first game since June 27.

Until about 90 minutes before first pitch. The club announced that Naylor was a scratch, and Randal Grichuk replaced him at designated hitter.

Naylor’s neck discomfort was deemed enough of an issue to keep him out of a fourth consecutive game. Manager Torey Lovullo had said before the game that Naylor had to get through batting practice to fully clear him to play, and apparently, the medical staff and Lovullo did not see what they’d hoped to.

“I’ve watched some of the work, actually the work that was being done on him just so I can get an understanding of how he’s feeling in real time,” Lovullo said of Naylor pregame, “and he seems to be in a much better spot.”

Outfielder Corbin Carroll took another step toward playing again when he swung a bat before the Diamondbacks’ second game of this four-game series with the San Francisco Giants. Carroll has been on the 10-day injured list with a fracture in his left wrist since June 24.

“There’s a process and a routine and a rhythm to everything he does every single day, and there’s no days off of them,” Lovullo said of Carroll. “So he’s in a really good spot right now. I think he’s at peace with where the injury has taken him, and it’s all about getting healthy right now.”

Given that Carroll is one of several Diamondbacks to have been hit in the hand area with pitches recently, Lovullo was asked if he suggested that his players wear a type of hand pad when batting, which is what Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani does. Lovullo said he has done so.

He met with Diamondbacks assistant athletic trainer Junko Yazawa the day after Carroll was hit by a pitch in Toronto, and was shown different types of hand pads.

“I can’t make him wear it. It’s a comfort thing with two hands on the bat, you know, there’s got to be some connection between the two hands,” Lovullo said. “Sometimes it takes a little while to get used to. Sometimes it’s very comfortable, but I strongly encourage everybody to get padded up.

“Balls are traveling at a high velocity, pitchers might be getting to the big leagues a little sooner than they should and they don’t know where that ball is going. And that’s why I think there’s an uptick in some of these hand injuries or some of these balls that are whistled up around the neck area.”

-José M. Romero

Drey Jameson undergoes MRI on right elbow

Right-hander Drey Jameson underwent an MRI on his elbow on Tuesday, July 1, Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen said, another setback for a pitcher whom the club had hoped would play a key role in its bullpen this year.

Jameson reported feeling tightness in his elbow after making a rehab appearance in the Arizona Complex League last week, Hazen said.

Results of the MRI were not immediately known.

Jameson had spent the previous month rehabbing after landing on the Triple-A Reno injured list due to right elbow inflammation in May.

Jameson had Tommy John surgery on that same elbow in September 2023 and missed all of last season. He started the year healthy but in the minors, ultimately making his return to a major league mound on April 20 at Wrigley Field. He made three appearances with the Diamondbacks before being sent back to Reno in late April.

A couple of weeks later, he experienced more elbow discomfort and went on the injured list.

—Nick Piecoro

Coming up

Wednesday, July 2: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (7-4, 3.49) vs. Giants RHP Landen Roupp (6-5, 3.43).

Thursday, July 3: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (8-5, 5.38) vs. Giants LHP Robbie Ray (8-3, 2.75).

Friday, July 4: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (3-4, 5.13) vs. Royals LHP Kris Bubic (6-6, 2.25).

(This story has been updated to add new information.)