Paul Sewald does not like to watch games after he has pitched in them.
This is primarily because he does not like games to happen after he has pitched in them. Such is life for a closer: For Sewald to take the ball for the ninth, leave the field and have any game left to watch, something must have gone very wrong. Yet this was the position in which he found himself during Game 1 of the World Series on Friday.
The Diamondbacks closer entered with a two-run lead in the ninth. He left without it. A two-run home run by Rangers shortstop Corey Seager meant extra innings, and while going through his usual cooldown work in the trainers’ room, Sewald could watch them only on television. This is his least favorite way to watch a game—“nerve-wracking,” he says, far worse than any viewing experience from the bullpen or in the dugout. And so it was on TV, out of the game, nerves wracked, that he watched fellow Diamondbacks reliever Miguel Castro allow an eleventh-inning, walk-off shot to Rangers right fielder Adolis García.
“My job is to finish games when I get in there,” Sewald said. “And I didn’t.”
The final score was Texas 6, Arizona 5, and the victory flipped the script on one of the storylines for this series. One of the Diamondbacks’ clear advantages over the Rangers was their bullpen. With Sewald as closer and Ryan Thompson and Kevin Ginkel as set-up men, the group has been able to lock down wins throughout October. The Rangers, meanwhile, have offered a more uneven experience through those later innings.
Yet in Game 1?
Thompson and Ginkel each allowed enough traffic on the base paths to make things tense. Sewald blew his first save since he was traded to Arizona at the deadline. Castro was tagged for a loss for the first time in more than two months. The group looked frayed and frazzled as a whole. And this was especially true when compared to their opponents. The Rangers’ bullpen combined for six-plus shutout innings to give their offense a chance to get back in the game.
“I can’t say enough about what they did,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said of his relievers. “They rose to the occasion to hold them there. You’re down two runs, you want to keep it close and give yourself a chance to get back in it, which is what happened. And that’s because of that bullpen.”
Texas’ relief corps will be able to ride the high of that collective victory for the next 24 hours. Arizona’s will try to bounce back—and to figure out how to pitch to the pair of guys who beat them.
Seager and García have been two of the most dazzling performers in the game this October. Seager played like an MVP all year and has a history of rising to the occasion in the playoffs. García has enjoyed an electric month that saw him tie the record for most RBIs in a single postseason in the first inning on Friday and break it in the 11th. The question of how to pitch to the two of them is generally vexing. But over the last two weeks? It’s looked almost unfathomable.
Sewald, for his part, said he could not be too upset with the home run to Seager. It wasn’t a bad pitch in his estimation: It was a high fastball, just what he’d wanted, but Seager is talented enough to take good pitches and deposit them in the stands. “Corey Seager is one of the best players in the league,” Sewald said. “It’s just one of those things.” No, what upset him was the fact that it was a two-run home run, rather than a solo shot: It would not have tied the game had Sewald not first allowed a walk to No. 9 hitter Leody Taveras. He’d missed arm-side with his fastball three times in a row. And then he paid for it.
“It’s the walk that will frustrate me more than anything,” Sewald said.
That was a theme for the D-Backs on Friday.
“You can’t walk 10 batters in a World Series game and expect to hold them in the situation that we held them in,” said Arizona manager Torey Lovullo. “It was a matter of time before something happened. And it did.”
But what ultimately cost the Diamondbacks was not issuing a walk but trying to dodge one. Castro had fallen behind in the count in the 11th inning early against García—first 2–0 and then 3–1. He’d started the at bat with his slider and then turned to his changeup. But trying not to miss the zone again, hoping to avoid that walk, he moved off the changeup and switched to his sinker. And he watched García smash it for the walk-off.
“The plan was to mix up the pitches,” Castro said through an interpreter. “It just didn’t work out.”
The Diamondbacks staff had discussed with their pitchers at length the challenge of Seager and García. Their philosophy was to “ride a fine line,” says Arizona reliever Kyle Nelson, who pitched the tenth inning and successfully retired Seager. You have to be aggressive. If you’re too aggressive, though, you’ll get punished. Which means that you have to be careful, too.
But where exactly is that line? With the benefit of hindsight, of course, it’s easy to say the answer should have been somewhere with more care, less aggression. Lovullo told reporters he had been discussing the question with Arizona’s front office. He wasn’t sure he had an answer yet.
“If I’m sitting there as a Monday morning quarterback—I’m thinking about it now,” he said. “But I was thinking with a very clear head, make pitches, bring our closer into the game and we’ll get a couple of outs here and march off the field.”
That didn’t happen. Which means that Arizona must now figure out how to strike that balance more precisely between care and aggression—in a way that makes sure their closer will not have anything to watch on television.
