Sewald, Bradford make their pitch

Paul Sewald put it best, because he seems to put most things best, because you would struggle discovering a better interview at any level of professional sports.

“We might not be as big as some places like California or Texas or Florida,” Sewald said, “but our best is as good as anyone’s best. Our best is Bryce Harper and Kris Bryant and names like that. I’m just glad everyone is finding out how good Las Vegas baseball is.”

If those he listed are the standard by which local prospects are now judged, it presents a fairly sizable mountain for others being evaluated to scale. But beyond a reigning National League Most Valuable Player (Harper) and Rookie of the Year (Bryant) exists a pool of names that has or could soon join those stars in the big leagues.

Sewald is one, and so, too, is 51s teammate Chasen Bradford, marking the first time the Las Vegas Triple-A team has featured two local products in the same season. Sewald is 25 and attended Bishop Gorman High and in 2006 was part of a team that beat Silverado for the state championship, a Skyhawks side that included Bradford.

It’s something Sewald never lets his teammate forget.

Things just don’t work out this way, where two guys who played on a travel ball team together before reaching high school pitch out of the same bullpen so many years later, having been drafted by the New York Mets a year apart and now sit one step from the call both have dreamed about since their first long toss.

This can be a good and bad problem, given the Mets are a season removed from losing in the World Series and should contend for another run in 2016, their bullpen