Diamondbacks Closer Paul Sewald Addresses First Blown Save of 2026

Paul Sewald had put together a stretch of nine saves without blowing a lead or surrendering a save-situation run — including a 1-0 save two games ago. Unfortunately for the Arizona Diamondbacks, that came to an end Wednesday against the Texas Rangers.

Sewald fell victim to some poor batted ball luck, but ultimately served up an RBI double on a center-cut sweeper before allowing Rangers first baseman Jake Burger to tie the game with a weakly-hit single. Once Sewald was pulled, it took only one pitch off Juan Morillo for the Rangers to win it.

Sewald spoke to D-backs.TV's Jody Jackson postgame. Here's what he had to say:

Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald addresses blown save

"I felt like they were just on every pitch today," Sewald said. "[I'll[ go back and take a look, just felt like they knew what was coming, so we'll try to look at it.

"It just felt like when I threw good pitches, it didn't matter, and then they were just barely off with the ones that were just off. We'll see. Maybe they didn't, but in my experience, that's kind of what that felt like."

Sewald said it was difficult to tell in the moment whether or not his pitches were offline from where he wanted them.

"You're trying to get weak contact," Sewald added. "You're trying to get swing-and-miss and weak contact. Both of those [hits] were weak contacts. So, just get back to the drawing board and keep throwing strikes, and we'll just go back at them in Colorado."

As volatile as reliever ERA is, Sewald's is now 4.70 after being charged with three earned in 0.2 innings Wednesday.

"I think he was leaving [the sweeper] arm-side," manager Torey Lovullo said of Sewald's outing.

"I think there were some misses with his fastball. We've been so reliant on him," Lovullo said. "He's been perfect in that role, so it's tough. It's a tough situation. We just got to digest it, understand what happened. He will, and be ready to go on Friday."

Though the righty certainly did not have a good night, though it's possible he may not have needed to come in for a save situation if Arizona's offense did its job. The D-backs went 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position and stranded 13 runners.

Sewald said that much did not matter to him. He simply did not get the job done.

"As a pitcher, you're supposed to pitch. It doesn't matter," the closer said. "We talked about winning 1-0 the other day, and 6-5 is just as bad as losing 2-1. So, as a pitcher, you just try to go out and throw a zero. You have no control over the offense, positive or negative, so you just try to do your job, and it didn't work out today."

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