Rosenthal: ‘Playoff Corey Seager’, with one pitch, flipped the narrative of Game 1 of the World Series

ARLINGTON — Jon Gray understood Paul Sewald’s pain.

While Gray is now Corey Seager’s teammate with the Texas Rangers, the two were NL West rivals from 2015 to 2020, Gray pitching for the Rockies, Seager slugging for the Dodgers.

Seager is 9-for-25 lifetime off Gray with three doubles and a homer. So when Seager launched his game-tying ninth-inning homer off Sewald in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the World Series, Gray was only so sympathetic.

“I just want to yell, ‘That’s what it feels like,’” Gray said.

Seager’s pulled two-run homer, a 112.6 mph shot that would have been out of all 30 major-league parks, came on a first-pitch fastball at the top of the zone.



Why Sewald, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ closer, threw Seager a first-pitch fastball, and to that location no less, is a question that lingered Friday night after the Rangers’ 6-5 victory on Adolis García’s walk-off homer in the 11th inning.

Including the playoffs, Seager has swung at a major-league high 53 percent of first-pitch fastballs this season, according to STATS Perform. Since entering the league in 2015, his 46 percent swing rate on first-pitch fastballs is also the highest in the majors.

Counting all first pitches, only the Rays’ Christian Bethancourt swung at a higher rate than Seager in 2023, minimum 300 plate appearances.

Why is Seager so aggressive on the first pitch?

“Those guys are good,” he said, referring to opposing pitchers. “You never want to just give them a strike. You never know if the one you’re supposed to move forward (on) is the first one, so you’re just kind of always ready.”

Knowing that, and knowing the damage Seager has done on first pitches — a .361 batting average, 13 homers, seven doubles and a 1.093 OPS — Sewald probably should have started Seager far outside the zone, perhaps in another state.

Asked at his locker if teams have scouting reports that warn against throwing him first-pitch fastballs, Seager said, “I hope not.” But Gray, during his time with the Rockies, eventually figured out throwing Seager such pitches was not the best plan.

“I learned the hard way, I did,” Gray said. “I learned.”

Sewald, who entered the game 6-for-6 in save opportunities during the postseason, had limited options.

A two-pitch closer, Sewald threw 57 percent four-seam fastballs and 43 percent sweepers during the regular season. He had previous success against Seager, holding him 0-for-5 with three walks. Afterward, he seemed more upset by his walk to Leody Taveras leading off the ninth, the 10th allowed by Diamondbacks pitchers during the game, than Seager’s homer.

“I haven’t taken a look at it,” Sewald said of his fastball to Seager. “There’s no use in taking a look at it right now. Guys told me it was not a bad pitch. I threw a good pitch and he just hit it. It’s the walk that will frustrate me more than anything.”

Ian Kennedy, a veteran Rangers pitcher who is on the injured list with a strained right rotator cuff, faced Seager only three times when they were opponents, but recalls him as a hitter who knew the zone well and was always dangerous on the fastball.

“You had to almost trick him,” Kennedy said. “Be OK with a walk and face the next guy.”

A walk to Seager would have put the tying run on base with one out for Evan Carter, with García on deck. Not an ideal strategy. But then, pitching to Seager also proved less than ideal.

“You could definitely see that he was going up there looking to get on top of a high fastball,” Sewald said.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, during his postgame news conference, said he had not yet seen video of Seager’s homer. But he acknowledged that immediately after the game he spoke to members of the team’s front office about what might have been if he had chosen to walk Seager in that spot.

“I think, if I’m sitting there as a Monday morning quarterback, I’m thinking about it now,” Lovullo 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 was my mindset.”

Fair enough, considering how effective Sewald had been in these playoffs. If the Diamondbacks had walked Seager, Carter or García might have tied the game with an extra-base hit. Heck, García might have even won it with a three-run shot, considering he has now hit homers in five straight postseason games.

One pitch, that was all it took. One pitch, with the Diamondbacks two outs away from victory. One pitch, with Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien still processing that he had just struck out.

“I’m in there putting my batting gloves away,” Semien said. “and the ball is going in the third deck.”

Seager’s 2022 season, his first with the Rangers after signing a 10-year, $325 million free-agent contract, was in some ways the worst of his career, at least offensively. He hit a career-high 33 homers, but batted a career-low 245. His .772 OPS was his lowest in a season in which he played 130 or more games.

“It was hard. It was a lot different than I thought it would be,” Seager told me in an interview for Fox Sports. “ You showed up to a place where you didn’t know anybody, and just having eyes on you where not used to (that). You’re just used to being another one of the guys. So it was definitely an adjustment period.”

For one year, anyway.

“It’s always what you talk about growing up, playing in the World Series. In the moment, it almost gets past you, so I’ll enjoy this one a little more.”@Ken_Rosenthal sat down with Corey Seager, who is playing in his third #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/Q35axLg450

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 27, 2023

Seager missed time with a strained left hamstring and right thumb sprain during the 2023 regular season, appearing in only 119 games. If not for his injuries, and if not for Shohei Ohtani’s remarkable two-way performance, the shortstop might have been the American League MVP. Despite missing more than a quarter of the season, he again hit 33 homers while producing career-highs with a .327 batting average and 1.013 OPS.

In the postseason, Seager is reaching an even higher level. Semien noted during the Division Series that seeing “playoff Corey Seager” was a revelation. Playoff Corey has an extra bounce in his step, Semien said. Playoff Corey also is batting .327 with four homers and a 1.158 OPS in 64 plate appearances.

“I think people start to understand him better when he plays in the biggest environments,” Rangers offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker said. “There are players who can play good in the regular season. You get to the biggest stage and you watch how consistent he is, that’s why he’s got the respect he has across the league.”

Seager had even crazier numbers when he was MVP of the 2020 NLCS and World Series for the Dodgers. He also hit a memorable two-run homer off the Astros’ Justin Verlander to break a 1-1 tie in Game 2 of the 2017 World Series. Semien, then with the A’s, watched that game on television. It struck him Friday night that Seager’s reaction to his homer off Sewald was the same as his reaction to his homer off Verlander.

“He made contact and immediately screamed,” Semien said.

“To see him yell as soon as he hit it,” third baseman Josh Jung added, “you knew it was about to go a mile.”

No wonder Seager was excited. As noted by The Athletic’s Jayson Stark, he had just hit only the third ninth-inning Game 1 World Series homer that tied a game or turned a loss into a win. The others were Kirk Gibson off Dennis Eckersley in 1988, one of the most famous Series homers of all-time, and Alex Gordon off Jeurys Familia in 2015.

Seager so rarely displays emotion, he at times seems almost robotic. But after his first-inning homer off the Astros’ Cristian Javier in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, he returned to the dugout in an almost euphoric state.

What brought out that side of him?

“I don’t know, to be honest with you,” Seager said. “It’s a rival in the division. It’s Game 7. You played for this all year. I don’t show a whole lot of emotions. It was a lot of fun to kind of release that and see some enjoyment from me doing it.”



Seager’s teammates got a kick out of his reaction, all right — “they were all looking at me kind of sideways,” he said, smiling. Friday night, they were even more fired up by the way he celebrated his homer off Sewald. His scream. His bat flip. His skipping up the first-base line.

“For Corey to do what he does on the biggest stage and obviously show elation going down to first base, that’s such a special moment,” Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe said. “But that’s why you bring a guy like that here. That’s why you pay top dollar for a top-tier player. You get a top-tier performance when we needed it the most.”

For Seager, it’s all rather simple. When I asked him during our Fox interview what he remembered most about his NLCS and World Series performance in 2020, he said, “Honestly, none of it. You never think about your own success. You think about how that team came together, how that team performed.”

Friday night was no different. In the interview room, a reporter asked him to replay his homer off Sewald: “Was it a good pitch? Was it a hitter’s pitch? What kind of pitch was it? It went out so fast, you really couldn’t tell? You don’t know?”

“Sorry,” Seager said.

It was classic Seager, deflecting any talk from himself. Yet, as uncomfortable as he sometimes appears in interviews, Ecker said the thing that distinguishes him most in October is, “how comfortable he makes it all” on the field.

“You can never question how much he loves competing,” Ecker said. “You can tell, what it’s all about for him is championships.”

Keep throwing him first-pitch fastballs, and he will get even closer to that goal.

–The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner contributed to this story.

(Photo of Corey Seager reacting to his ninth-inning homer: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)