"Going into the first day all you want to do is go up there and not make a fool of yourself," he said.

Mission accomplished, as Young went 2-for-3 with a two-run homer in the D-backs' 5-3 win over the Rockies.

Though Young's homer was a moonshot to left-center, D-backs manager Bob Melvin was equally if not more impressed with his single in his first at-bat.

"You look over and you see [shortstop Troy] Tulowitzki move over to the hole and [Garrett] Atkins move to the hole and [Young] lines a ball up the middle and you could see them kind of look at each other like, 'Wow, that's a little different,'" Melvin said.

Going up the middle, going the other way at times and cutting down on his strikeouts are what Young hopes results from some changes in his mechanics at the plate.

Without getting too technical, Young is trying to slow himself down and move his hands back slightly as a way to improve his load at the plate. The idea is to let the ball travel farther before he swings, which gives him a longer look at it.

"In batting practice it's been feeling good, but in the games I thought it was going to take a little while to get the timing down," he said. "I honestly went into the game thinking I was going to be jammed a few times or I was going to be late, which is fine, but I was going to let the game come to me."