D-backs Paul Sewald receive $102million boost as a result of star pitcher transfer leaving Arizona Diamondbacks today

As Arizona Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald appeared to be on a collision course to his fifth blown save of the month in Wednesday night’s game, manager Torey Lovullo opted to pull his closer with one out and the bases loaded.

Reliable sidewinding reliever Ryan Thompson’s number was called, and the tall right-hander was able to put out the fire, as a 5-2 lead turned into a razor-thin 5-4 victory over the Nationals, completing the D-backs’ first sweep since May.

Thompson has remained an excellent late-inning reliever for the D-backs so far in 2024, pitching to a 1.81 ERA and 0.96 WHIP over 43 appearances, but Wednesday’s game marked his first save of the season. His previous save was August 27th, 2023.

It wasn’t exactly when Thompson–or anyone–might have thought he’d be pitching, but he entered the game ready to get the job done.

Thompson spoke to reporters postgame, and explained his thought process going into an unexpected outing.

“I think it’s just staying ready. I think Torey does a really good job of giving us a pretty good idea of how we’re going to be used… So it’s been really easy for us to kind of know how to prepare…”

“I think we do a really good job of just staying ready when that phone rings even though we have a good idea of what to expect, like the unexpected doesn’t throw us for a loop,” Thompson said.

good stretch to end this season.”

It’s easy to focus on the negative results, especially when Sewald’s struggles have left four, almost five wins on the field. But the D-backs, all blips considered, have played some of the best baseball in the league in July.

Arizona went 17-8 in July, the best record in MLB over that time. After starting the season 1-38 in games where they’ve trailed by multiple runs at any point, they also managed four of such comeback victories, including a chaotic walk-off ninth inning off All-Star closer Kyle Finnegan.

Such is the type of baseball we’ve come to expect from the snakes, although it hasn’t felt as strong up to this point. But the D-backs are finding their chaos again, and playing good, cohesive baseball.

Thompson noted that it finally feels like the feel of the 2023 team is creeping back into the clubhouse and onto the field, as the team begins to return to the form he knew they could boast.

“I think this is what we expected from the beginning of the season. Injuries are injuries, and it’s easy to blame it on injuries, I just don’t really think that we’ve played to the best of our ability up until this point.”

Thompson said that it can be easy to examine Arizona’s hot streak and assume they’re playing above expectation. But the right-hander feels that this type of baseball is the expectation, and the team is ever-capable of playing at this high of a level.

At any rate, the D-backs are finding their identity again. Creating chaos on the basepaths, coming back into games they have no business winning, and doing whatever it takes to grit out wins as a team, rather than on the backs of one or two star players.

“We can start using the Answerbacks thing again, we can start using the ’embrace the chaos,’ like all that stuff that seemed like it was a little silent for a while, it’s all back,” Thompson said.

“All the vibe, the aura that we feel, it’s there. I feel the same way as we did in the postseason… it’s nothing that we didn’t expect, this is who we are.”