Tag: Paul Sewald

The D-backs broadcast was left in stunned disbelief after closer Paul Sewald blew his third straight save

That “UGH!” was hilarious.

It truly takes a special type of pitcher to be a closer. You have to be comfortable sitting for an entire game and then being able to lock in for high-leverage situations. And even the best closers will experience struggles. It’s never easy.

Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald is going through one of those tough stretches right now, and it got even worse on Monday night with one of the most defeated announcing moments we’ll hear this season.

Coming off two straight blown saves, Sewald entered the game in the ninth to face the bottom half of the Braves’ lineup. He got two quick outs. But an Eddie Rosario single kept the Braves’ hopes alive. On a 1-1 count, Sewald tried to force Sean Murphy into a roll-over grounder with an outside corner fastball. Instead, he left it up, and Murphy barreled it.

D-backs announcers Steve Berthiaume and Bob Brenly were stunned.

“And it’s happened again,” Berthiaume said before a solid 15 seconds of silence.

The game-tying home run was Sewald’s third straight blown save, and the Braves went on to win, 5-4, in 11 innings.

D-backs fans certainly related to Berthiaume’s reaction after that one.

This was how Twitter/X reacted

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10 pitchers (including Josh Hader) whose tempos were most affected by the new pitch clock in 2023

Giovanny Gallegos is averaging nearly nine seconds less per pitch!

After years of speculation, the MLB officially began to implement a pitch clock for this season.

Pitchers are only allowed 15 seconds between pitches when the bases are empty and 20 seconds when runners are on base and the games are much faster.

Last season, we predicted ten pitchers who would likely become most impacted by the rule change. This season, using the pitch tempo data provided by Statcast, we were able to track which players have seen the biggest dips in their tempo on the mound. Here is how it works:

“Pitch tempo measures the median time between pitches (in other words pitch release to pitch release). Only pitches that follow a take (called strike or called ball) and are thrown to the same batter are considered for this metric.”

Note that this timer adds about six seconds more than the actual pitch timer used by umpires.

Using this data, meanwhile, we were able to determine which pitchers are operating at a faster tempo between each pitch while on the mound.

While we cannot assess that correlation equals causation, we also compared the expected weighted on-base average for each pitcher to track their year-over-year progress or regression.

This is why we chose that particular metric for evaluation (via MLB.com):

“xwOBA is more indicative of a player’s skill than regular wOBA, as xwOBA removes defense from the equation. Hitters, and likewise pitchers, are able to influence exit velocity and launch angle but have no control over what happens to a batted ball once it is put into play.”

Here are the ten players whose pitch tempo has been most impacted by the pitch clock rule change. The number next to each name indicates how much shorter the tempo is between each pitch for the player compared to last year.

RELATED: What are the MLB pitch clock rules? Breaking down the details, violations and more