{"id":526111,"date":"2026-03-08T05:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/526111\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T05:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:21:09","slug":"diamondbacks-ryan-thompson-focused-on-faith-leadership-ryan-thompson-is-focused-on-his-faith-leadership-in-diamondbacks-clubhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/526111\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamondbacks’ Ryan Thompson focused on faith, leadership Ryan Thompson is focused on his faith, leadership in Diamondbacks’ clubhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> relief pitcher Ryan Thompson is entering his seventh year in MLB and his fourth with the D-backs in 2026. While he looks for constant improvement each season, this year he\u2019s focused on his spiritual leadership inside the clubhouse.<\/p>\n

Thompson is devoted to his faith and he believes continuing to lean into it at a deeper level will not only improve his individual results but also his ability to help his teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to treat everybody the exact same, like in our faith, it\u2019s not a work-based faith. Your value is not what you do,\u201d Thompson told Arizona Sports\u2019 Wolf & Luke\u00a0Tuesday. \u201cThat\u2019s what I want for our clubhouse. Your value as a human being is not whether or not you performed on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a reliever in MLB, Thompson said nobody understands what it\u2019s like to come in to face one or two batters and either do your job or fail, and that be your day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Ryan Thompson wants to lead through faith<\/p>\n

When a teammate gives up a run or fails to complete the job in a given appearance, Thompson<\/a> doesn\u2019t want him to feel alone. Instead, he wants to be the guy who continues to be there and let his teammate know he still has value and is loved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t perform on the field and now all of a sudden I\u2019m not looking at you the same, you feel that,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cThen that impacts the way you play the next game and the next game. That\u2019s why the spiritual stuff really matters. So I want to go up, and I want to love on that guy.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike no one else wants to talk to you because they think that you\u2019re in your feelings and you don\u2019t want to talk to anybody. I want to put my arm around you and I want to just be there for you. Maybe you don\u2019t want to talk to me and that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

A big part of that for Thompson has been a switch in spiritual mindset.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s learned throughout the last couple of offseasons to receive \u201crevelations from the Holy Spirit\u201d rather than from theology and scripture alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the questions that I\u2019ve found to be really fruitful is asking God, \u2018What do you want me to know and what do you want me to do?\u2019 Then you walk into the clubhouse and you\u2019re just available.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour eyes are open, your ears are open, your hearts are open and you\u2019re just feeling revelation all the time, like I need to talk to this guy today. I don\u2019t know why. I\u2019m going to go talk to this guy today and then see what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t stop there. Thompson said a big part of his goal this season is to grow his own game through his faith as well.<\/p>\n

How does faith influence Ryan Thompson\u2019s performance?<\/p>\n

The Diamondbacks reliever has a 3.21 ERA across his three years in Arizona. He always goes into each offseason trying to have the same approach to baseball as he does with his faith, constantly trying to grow.<\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s 2025 season was shortened by a shoulder injury when he missed nearly two months from July to September. However, that gave him a chance to sit back and take a breath to switch his mindset before rejoining the team down the stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust relaxing a little bit. Stop white-knuckling that baseball, stop trying to force it every day,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI had some stuff off the field where I felt like my performance on the field was more so something that I needed and it was kind of crippling me a little bit at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo having that moment to sit back and say \u2018Okay, I\u2019m out here in the clubhouse preaching the Lord\u2019s peace, joy and freedom every single day, but am I living that?\u2019 It was kind of a looking at myself in the mirror moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

After returning from injury, Thompson pitched nine innings<\/a> in September, gave up two earned runs and struck out six batters.<\/p>\n

Now, as Thompson prepares for his seventh season in the league, and the Diamondbacks reload with Merrill Kelly, Zac Gallen and Paul Sewald, alongwith a lethal lineup, the D-backs reliever is excited to see what Arizona can accomplish this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that maybe expectations aren\u2019t high enough for the Diamondbacks this year,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

\t
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Ryan Thompson is entering his seventh year in MLB and his fourth with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-526111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}