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ARLINGTON, Texas — All it took for Paul Sewald to go from middling Mets reliever to lock-down World Series closer was a little high heat, minus the heat.

Three years after being non-tendered by the Mets, Sewald has emerged as one of the keys to the Diamondbacks making their run to the World Series — both feats surprising in their own right.

Since he left Queens, though, Sewald has resurrected his career by changing where he throws his low-90s fastball, refining the shape of his slider and then pitching with the confidence that was difficult to establish as a Met.

“Man, doing a 180, I’ve changed everything about myself from when I was in New York,” Sewald said Thursday on the eve of the World Series against the Rangers at Globe Life Field. “It’s worked out a lot better than it did in New York. I obviously wish I had pitched better there, but I got some advice that really turned my career around and just changing everything about my pitch shapes has probably been the key to being who I am.

“Obviously I lacked confidence there because I wasn’t pitching well — it’s like the chicken or the egg. You can’t pitch well without confidence but you can’t have confidence until you pitch well. I just finally started pitching well and obviously feel a lot better about who I am as a pitcher.”

It didn’t raise many eyebrows when the Mets non-tendered Sewald in December 2020 after he pitched to a 5.50 ERA in 125 games across parts of four seasons.

But his turnaround began shortly after he signed with the Mariners that offseason.

They wanted him to throw his fastball up in the zone instead of down and away while also tweaking his slider into more of a sweeper and ditching his changeup.

Sewald said he struggled with the adjustment in spring training of 2021 but kept working on it while at the club’s alternate site that April.

After a few months it clicked, and in 189 ¹/₃ innings since he has posted a 2.95 ERA.

The 33-year-old isn’t throwing much harder than he did as a Met — his fastball averaged 92.2 mph this season — but elevating the pitch has made all the difference because of the lower slot from which he throws it.

“He used to kill us when he was in Seattle and I was in Houston,” Diamondbacks pitching coach Brent Strom said. “Guys would come back to the bench and say, ‘S–t, I can’t hit it. It’s on me.’ I’d look and say, ‘It’s only 91.’ That’s when you realize.”

In eight games this postseason, Sewald — who was traded from the Mariners to the Diamondbacks at the deadline — has yet to allow a run, recording six saves with 11 strikeouts across eight innings.

Jeremy Hefner played with Sewald in 2014 at High-A St. Lucie when Hefner was rehabbing his first Tommy John surgery before becoming Sewald’s pitching coach for the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

Hefner noted “there was an opportunity” for Sewald to throw his fastball up in the zone, but did not made it a point of emphasis. Three years later, of course, hindsight is 20-20.

“I think looking back, I wish I would have obviously — revisionist history here, but I wish I would have been a little more direct,” Hefner said by phone Thursday. “I’ve definitely noticed it. But it was one of those things where it just never got to the point where we were saying that explicitly.”

As for why the fastball plays up so much when Sewald elevates it?

“He’s a big guy and he throws from a unique release height,” Hefner said. “So the hitters are expecting the ball to come down and it doesn’t. He can get his hand in position to continue to ride the ball from that lower slot, which is pretty difficult to do.”

Sewald said he believes he and Hefner would have been able to figure things out had they gotten more time together.

Instead, the Mets did not tender Sewald a contract after the 2020 season, which indirectly allowed his career to take off.

“Just super happy for him,” Hefner said. “The work ethic was never in question. He was never a guy that slacked, so you knew if he could just figure out that last piece, he could turn into something special.”

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