Paul Sewald is one of the best closers in baseball. He is a perfect 7-of-7 in save opportunities this year. He has a 0.79 ERA.
But for all that he has going for him, there is one problem that he has been unable to solve: His PitchCom device seems to malfunction every time he takes the mound.
“I have no idea what the problem is,” Sewald said. “There’s nothing worse than just getting ready and then to have that go on before the inning starts.”
Such was the case again on Thursday night at Chase Field.
After jogging out to his customary “Jump Around” entrance music, Sewald toed the rubber, completed his warmup tosses and circled the mound in preparation for his first pitch of the inning.
With his glove held to his ear to help block out the background noise, Sewald waited to hear catcher Gabriel Moreno’s pitch call in the PitchCom device that was attached to the inside of his cap. And he waited. And he waited.
Sewald eventually realized that his PitchCom was not working. Again.
Clearly exasperated, Sewald motioned to the Diamondbacks‘ dugout for a replacement. Almost instantly, a Diamondbacks bat boy rushed out another PitchCom device. Sewald swapped them out, and the new one worked.
Sewald went on to throw a scoreless inning to finish off a Diamondbacks win. Was the PitchCom hiccup detrimental to his success? Clearly not. Was it annoying? You better believe it.
For Sewald, what makes his PitchCom issues particularly dumbfounding is the fact that he tests them in the bullpen before entering the game. They work there, but, often times, not during the game.
While PitchCom malfunctions across the league are not unique to Sewald, he has seemingly had more far more issues than any other Diamondbacks pitcher.
“Every time it’s with Sewald,” manager Torey Lovullo said with a grin. “I don’t know if he knows how to work that thing.”
Of course, PitchCom — and the occasional bugs that come with it — is a relatively new phenomenon in Major League Baseball.
The league first made PitchCom devices an option for teams in 2022. There were two main goals: preventing sign stealing and improving pace of play.
In 2023, MLB added the option for pitchers to wear a transmitter, which allowed them to call their own pitches in addition to the catcher.
PitchCom devices gained widespread popularity last year, when the introduction of the pitch clock made quick, efficient communication between pitcher and catcher all the more important.
Given the issues that Sewald has had with the device, would he rather just go back to old-fashioned finger signals from the catcher?
“That’d be great,” Sewald said, “except then I can’t count on [the opposing team] not stealing signs.
“I’d rather take the extra second and be annoyed with the process rather than go with signs.”
Suffice it to say that Sewald also does not miss the clunkiness of communicating with finger signals.
“Having the sign card,” he said, “and going over it like six times — like, yeah, the second option the fourth time — was so dumb.”
Another factor is timing. With the pitch clock in place, Sewald said that it is already challenging enough to get every pitch off in time using PitchCom. Going back to traditional signs would make it impossible.
In 2024, dealing with the PitchCom — both its groundbreaking benefits and its occasional glitches — is part of the job description of a major-league pitcher.
While most mishaps have simply been minor annoyances, there have been several more notable ones since the devices were first introduced.
Last year in a spring training game, Minnesota Twins catcher Tony Wolters tipped every pitch that Kenta Maeda threw for two innings because he had his PitchCom volume turned up too high, allowing hitters to hear what was coming.
Had home plate umpire Brennan Miller not alerted the Twins’ dugout to the issue, they might not have ever found out.
In July of 2022, Houston Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker tried to steal home on New York Yankees starter Luis Severino while Severino was troubleshooting PitchCom issues on the mound. Impressively, Severino reacted quickly and threw Tucker out at home.
As is often the case, with new technology comes more potential for technological failure. The PitchCom device is no exception.
The Diamondbacks are doing their part by charging their PitchCom devices before games, Sewald said, but they still just don’t work for him sometimes.
“I’m not enough of a tech guy to understand,” Sewald said. “Part of me still is skeptical that another team could steal the signs. Just because MLB tells me they can’t doesn’t necessarily make me 100 percent trust the system.
“I don’t know anything about it. It works down [in the bullpen] when we do the volume. I come into the game and it doesn’t work. I don’t know what to tell anybody.”
Top photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic
