Torey Lovullo Had Hilarious Story About Gutsy Bunt Decision

The Arizona Diamondbacks completed a thrilling ninth-inning comeback over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. But it might not have come to pass without an incredibly gutsy in-game decision.

With runners at first and second and no outs, veteran catcher James McCann showed bunt, twice. Both times, he fouled the pitch off.

But then, with two strikes, he did it a third time. This time, the bunt got down, the runners moved over, and Arizona was able to score the pair on a Jorge Barrosa sacrifice fly and Geraldo Perdomo's heroic walk-off single.

After the game, manager Torey Lovullo spoke about the decision to let McCann bunt. He told an amusing story of the interaction between the two.

Arizona Diamondbacks' Torey Lovullo Shares Amusing James McCann Story

Lovullo said McCann had been persistently telling his manager about his ability to lay down bunts.

"About two weeks ago, I pinch-bunted for him, and he'd been talking smack for the past two weeks about what a good bunter he is," Lovullo said. "I said, 'Okay, big boy, go get it, see what you got.' But once he tells you that, you trust him.

"[He's] a guy that can draw from a lot of experience. So when he said, go back and look at it, and I did, and I saw what it looked like, I knew that his technique was good, and I knew that he was confident in bunting the baseball," Lovullo said.

But, perhaps even more intriguing, Lovullo said he took the bunt sign off once the count reached two strikes. McCann delivered anyway.

"I don't like to put pressure on a bunter in that situation, talk about minimal margins," Lovullo said.

"But he said to me in the dugout, 'I've been talking so much smack about bunting, I had to get it down. I had three chances.'"

McCann said he drew on his college experience at Arkansas to get the bunt down.

"I went to college. You don't survive college without knowing how to bunt. ... I've seen guys get pinch-hit in the middle of an at-bat for not getting a bunt down, so you learn to deal with the pressure."

"Mentally, I had sold out that I was going to get it down, and I was going to give Barrosa a chance to tie and win the game," McCann said.

The Diamondbacks had very little margin for error on Tuesday night, but came away with enough execution to get the job done. Arizona is still very much alive in this playoff hunt.

Arizona Diamondbacks Latest News