Canadian connections throughout MLB Postseason

Photo: Baseball Canada

October 7, 2022

Baseball Canada

OTTAWA, Ont. – There’s no better time of the year for baseball fans than October with Major League Baseball’s postseason.

For fans in Canada, the hometown Toronto Blue Jays are hosting the Seattle Mariners in a best-of-three Wild Card Series at Rogers Centre marking the return of playoff baseball north of the border for the first time since 2016.

Of course, fans from coast-to-coast-to-coast will be locked into the Jays/Mariners series to cheer on the home club but there are plenty of other Canadian baseball storylines to keep tabs on.

Let’s start with the Blue Jays who had four Canadian players in their lineup this season led by All-Star closer Jordan Romano (Markham, Ont.) while Montreal-born Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had his second consecutive All-Star season.

Brampton’s Zach Pop was acquired in a pre-trade deadline deal and has performed admirably in a relief role with an ERA of 1.89 in a Blue Jays uniform. Otto Lopez, who spent part of his youth in Montreal and represented Canada in 2019 at the COPABE Pan Am Games Qualifier, appeared in eight games with the Blue Jays this season after debuting in 2021. He was not named to the Jays Wild Card Series roster.

You’ll catch former National Team star Jimmy Van Ostrand (Richmond, BC) in the Blue Jays’ dugout as the team’s Mental Performance Coach.

The Blue Jays’ wild card opponents, the Seattle Mariners, had two Canadians on their roster this season, including Kingston’s Matt Brash and Greenfield Park, Quebec’s Abraham Toro while Victoria, BC’s Carson Vitale is part of the coaching staff as major league field coordinator.

Brash began the season in the Mariners’ rotation but was demoted to triple-A where he moved to the bullpen. Since his return, he has been a mainstay in the relief role and figures to make an appearance or two on home soil this weekend in Toronto.

Toro spent the majority of the season in Seattle belting 10 home runs in the process and is on the Mariners’ Wild Card Series roster.

The American League Central winning Cleveland Guardians received major contributions at the plate and on the mound this season from a pair of former Junior National Team teammates in first baseman Josh Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.) and right-handed starter Cal Quantrill (Port Hope, Ont.). Naylor returned from a gruesome leg injury in 2021 to swat 20 homers while Quantrill won 15 games with a tidy 3.38 ERA.

A feelgood story of the season came just last week when the Guardians called up top prospect Bo Naylor, brother of Josh, for his big league debut, after a sparkling year offensively split between double-A and triple-A.

We’ll see what the trio can do when they host the Tampa Bay Rays in the other AL Wild Card Series.

The Rays feature Toronto native Jonathan Erlichman on their coaching staff as process & analytics coach.

Awaiting a Wild Card Series winner, the AL East champions, the New York Yankees feature right-hander Jameson Taillon in their starting rotation. The Woodlands, Texas native represented Canada in the 2013 World Baseball Classic by virtue of his Canadian citizenship.

Moving on to the National League where the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves have won the National League East title under Canadian General Manager Alex Anthopoulos (Montreal, Que.).

The Braves were without the services of former All-Star pitcher Mike Soroka (Calgary, AB) for the third consecutive season as the 25-year-old is still working on a return to the majors after tearing his Achilles tendon twice in the span of a year. Soroka took positive steps towards a return earlier this season appearing in six minor league games (25 innings pitched) but was shut down in late September due to elbow soreness.

Staying in the NL East where Coruna, Ontario’s Rob Thomson took over as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies in May becoming the first, full-time Canadian manager in the big leagues since 1934. The club was 22-29 when he took over before going on a remarkable run to where they’ve won 87 games to qualify for the postseason as a wild card team.

The St. Louis Cardinals won the National League’s Central Division but will be without the services of two-time Gold Glove Award winner Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) who’s nursing a hamstring injury. Canadian baseball legend Stubby Clapp (Windsor, ON) will be in his familiar spot as the Cardinals first base coach.

The NL West winning Los Angeles Dodgers, who had the best season in baseball, will have former MVP Freddie Freeman in their lineup when they open their NL Division Series. Freeman, as many recall, honoured his late Canadian mother in 2017 by playing for Canada in the World Baseball Classic.

A trio of Canadian bullpen catchers are on playoff squads in Toronto’s Alex Andreopoulos (Blue Jays), Guelph, Ontario’s Jamie Pogue (Cardinals) and Kirkland, Quebec’s Eric Langill (Mets).