CLEARWATER, Fla. – After a 5-3 win over the Phillies on Wednesday, Canada\u2019s World Baseball Classic team heads to Puerto Rico with the hope of advancing beyond the first round for the first time ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good vibe,\u201d said manager Ernie Whitt. \u201cWe want to win every game we play, but it\u2019s a learning (opportunity) for us, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
A wide range of arms contributed against a Phillies lineup featuring the likes of Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, Adolis Garcia and Bryson Stott. Veterans like James Paxton and Phillippe Aumont needed the tune-up since they aren\u2019t in affiliated baseball right now, while minor-leaguers like Guardians left-handed starting pitching prospect Matt Wilkinson seized their first chance to make an impression.<\/p>\n
As the team leaves for Puerto Rico, Whitt believes this group has a real chance to advance beyond the first round for the first time in six attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a feeling, a gut feeling I have,\u201d a smiling Whitt said from the first base dugout at Phillies camp, a Canadian flag pinned behind him while he spoke. \u201cI guess that’s the biggest thing. I don’t have an analytic feeling about it. No, it\u2019s just a gut feeling, you know, and I think we\u2019re pooling both our guts together and the analytics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada will practice twice in Puerto Rico before opening the tournament against Colombia on Saturday. In the meantime, here\u2019s a closer look at what we learned in the course of their brief training camp in Florida:<\/p>\n
Each day matters with less than a week to prepare for the tournament, so it\u2019s helpful that Canada faced some talented big-league pitchers like Kevin Gausman, Aaron Nola and Jhoan Duran in their exhibition games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good,\u201d Whitt said. \u201cWhether we’ll see that type of pitching with a lot of the countries, we don’t know. But, we’re going to try to be prepared for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the results of the games, the Canadian coaches were impressed by the mental resilience their team showed on Tuesday, coming back to tie the game against the Blue Jays after falling behind 7-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s no give-up,\u201d Whitt said. \u201cThat’s not what we accept with Baseball Canada. And I mean, perfect example, you look at the Blue Jays last year, how they never gave up, and they kept grinding the at-bats. That’s something that we’re trying to instil into these players here.\u201d<\/p>\n
From veterans like Josh Naylor and Tyler O\u2019Neill to up-and-comers like Denzel Clarke and Owen Caissie, there\u2019s a lot of position player talent on Team Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s great,\u201d said Naylor, Canada\u2019s first-ever captain. \u201cWe have power through the lineup and speed through the lineup with a lot of intelligence and experience. I really hope the young guys pick the brains of the veteran players here and gain some knowledge for their careers. Maybe one thing sticks with them, which could be valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s lineup started with Edouard Julien, Abraham Toro, Naylor and O\u2019Neill on Wednesday, but Whitt said he \u201cmight tweak it a little bit\u201d once the games count for real. Regardless of how Whitt and GM Greg Hamilton line things up, there\u2019s a lot of offensive talent in place \u2013 and that\u2019s before you even get to the stacked coaching staff featuring Russell Martin and Justin Morneau.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou take a lot of pride in wearing your country across your chest,\u201d Naylor said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much that goes into this. As a player, you sometimes get caught up playing for the name across the back. It\u2019s a very individual sport, obviously, and you want to be successful on your own. At the same time, when you play for your country, you\u2019ve got to represent everyone who came before you, your family, everyone that\u2019s from your area, your friends from that area. It\u2019s super cool to wear your country across your chest, and I take a lot of pride in that as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only one person in WBC history has managed all six tournaments, and it\u2019s Whitt. The 73-year-old veteran of 15 big-league seasons has a 5-10 record at the WBC and has led Canada to gold medals at the Pan Am games in 2011 and 2015. Ahead of his sixth WBC, Whitt reflected on what the role has meant to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m honoured,\u201d Whitt said. \u201cI mean, I am very honoured to be able to put the country across my chest. They keep asking me back, and as long as they ask me back, I think I’ll continue on. Of course, we want to succeed a little bit farther; we want to move forward. Anytime I take the field, I want to win. I don’t care who it’s against. Our ultimate goal is we win, and we know that this is a sprint, so we just have to grind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Closer not yet determined<\/p>\n
Michael Soroka and Jameson Taillon will start Canada\u2019s first two games, but how they\u2019ll handle late-game situations is less clear as the team flies south. With potential late-game options like Cade Smith and Matt Brash off the roster, Whitt said there\u2019s no clear-cut closer on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot yet,\u201d Whitt said. \u201cA lot might depend on match-ups and what we see, who we feel would be the best for it at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday against the Phillies, it was the Vancouver native Wilkinson who pitched the final two innings, but that\u2019s not necessarily reflective of how Canada will handle WBC games. Of course, there\u2019s one way around the closer question: use that formidable offence to build comfortable leads against the likes of Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico and Cuba.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. – After a 5-3 win over the Phillies on Wednesday, Canada\u2019s World Baseball Classic team heads…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-515782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}