Zac Curtis was heading out for a meal at In-N-Out Friday with some of his teammates at Class A Visalia when he got a text from pitching coach Jeff Bajenaru.

In the text, Bajenaru told Curtis that he needed to get back to the ballpark immediately because manager J.R. House is “really mad at you.”

“I didn’t know if they were serious or playing,” Curtis said. “House has a tipping scale where you really don’t know what’s going on.”

Curtis rushed back to the ballpark and found House, who stared at him for a moment. Then he gave Curtis the news: He was getting promoted.

“I’m thinking, ‘Cool, I get to go to Double-A,’ ” Curtis said. “He said, ‘That’s why (Saturday) morning you’re going to fly to Phoenix to meet the team.’ I sat there for a second and he said, ‘You’re going to the major leagues.’ I kept telling him, ‘Stop. No. Quit playing with me.' ”

It was no joke. The Diamondbacks called up Curtis, a 23-year-old left-hander from Visalia, the first time in franchise history Arizona has called up a player from below Double-A to make his major-league debut that wasn’t a Rule 5 player (catcher Oscar Hernandez).

“It still hasn’t hit me,” said Curtis, a sixth-round draft choice out of Middle Tennessee State in 2014 who had never been inside Chase Field before Saturday. “I’m just trying to take everything in.”

Curtis was 1-0 with two saves and a 5.23 ERA at Visalia. In three minor-league seasons he’s 7-5 with 49 saves and a 2.17 ERA. He was so far off the Diamondbacks radar even during spring training that manager Chip Hale had to call up some video Saturday to see what kind of pitcher the organization was sending him.

“What we’ve heard is he can get righties and lefties out and he’s got a workable breaking ball, which I’ve seen on video,” Hale said. “He’s a real tough competitor, which is great.”

Hale said Curtis likely will be used as a left-handed specialist.

“In a perfect world we’d like to be winning a game and he would pitch in situations to get one or two guys out at a time,” Hale said.

Curtis did just that Saturday, making his major-league debut in the ninth inning and getting Colorado's Gerardo Parra to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.

Curtis said his favorite moment of the last 24 hours was breaking the news to his wife, Chelsea, who’s an X-ray technician in Lawrenceburg, Tenn.

“She’s put up a lot,” Curtis said. “She’s raising our child (2-year-old Greyson), I’m gone all the time and she pushes me to get better. If I have a bad outing or even a good outing, she’s there to talk about it. She’s there to help me get through this.

“Getting to wake her up to tell her our dream, not just mine, came true, it was special.”

To make room for Curtis on the roster, the Diamondbacks designed left-handed reliever Keith Hessler for assignment.

Hale said one of the reasons Curtis was brought up was to give the Diamondbacks a second left-hander out of the bullpen. Andrew Chafin already has 12 appearances, although he’s thrown just 9 2/3 innings in those appearances. Last year Chafin threw 75 innings in 66 games.

“We don’t want to burn out Chafin,” Hale said