September 30, 2019

By Neil Munro

Canadian Baseball Network

As the 2019 MLB season wraps up, a couple of Canadians should make their presence felt in a big way as the playoffs unfold this year.

Unlike 2018 when not a single Canadian born ball player appeared in the post-season, James Paxton (Ladner, BC) and Mike Soroka (Calgary, Alta.) might well be considered as the ace of their respective pitching corps for the New York Yankees and the Atlanta Braves. As well, Russell Martin (Montreal, Que.) serves as the back-up catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers outstanding cast of starting pitchers. Actually, Freddie Freeman (of dual Canadian-American citizenship) did see action with Atlanta in the 2018 NL Division Series Championship round. Freeman returns once again as Soroka’s teammate and a formidable power hitter and run producer for the Braves. In actual fact, the playoff-bound teams do not have to declare their post-season rosters until Wednesday (October 2), but we will speculate freely on their make-up here.

A couple of additional Canadian players also saw limited action with two play-off bound clubs but are not listed on the rosters for the 2019 Division Series. Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) has been up and down with the St. Louis Cardinals several times during the 2019 season. He played with both the Memphis and Springfield Cardinals in between stints with the parent ball club, and finished the campaign on their expanded 40-man roster. Unless he is needed for an injury replacement, he will likely have to wait until next year to display his talents in the playoffs.

Abraham Toro (Longueuil, Que.) saw action with two different farm clubs in the Houston Astros organization before being called up on August 22. As with O’Neill, he almost certainly will not be on the Astros’ 25-man playoff roster. We might also have seen the play-off debut of the Cubs’ Rowan Wick (North Vancouver, BC), but Chicago’s run for the last wild-card spot fell short in the last week of the regular season in their uncharacteristic tailspin. Wick travelled back and forth from Chicago to Iowa no less than four times in 2019, but was perhaps their most effective bullpen hurler in September.

Martin will extend his Canadian record for most appearances in post-season play as soon as he sees action in the Division Series. Martin has played in 57 games in the baseball playoffs but has yet to see action in the World Series. Perhaps the Dodgers’ powerhouse ball club can make a return trip to the Fall Classic this year, after falling to the Boston Red Sox in five games in 2018. Previously, Martin has played in 31 games in the Division Series, 23 games in the League Championship Series and also in three Wild Card sudden death playoff games.

It is also noteworthy that Martin has played in more positions in the regular season than any other Canadian. This past year, he appeared in four games as a pitcher, adding to his efforts at catcher, second base, shortstop, third base, left field, right field, and DH. You might say that Martin was the most successful pitcher of any major league Canadian, since he had four near perfect innings in relief, giving up no runs, no walks and just 2 hits for an opponent’s batting average of 15.4. Of course, those fouir pitching appearances were actually lopsided wins or losses for the Dodgers, who tried to limit the workload of their bullpen regulars by using Martin in relief.

Martin’s 57 games in the post-season far exceeds the second best effort of Woodstock, Ont., native Tip O’Neill’s 19th century effort in that regard. In fact, O’Neill’s 38 games in the “World Series” were really just exhibition contests set up purely to generate some extra cash for the meager salaries that ball players earned at the time. Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, BC) saw action in 28 post-season games in his career, for the modern era playoff structure. George Selkirk (Huntsville, Ont.) played in 21 post-season playoff contests but all of those games were in the World Series in the 1930’s and 1940’s, long before there were earlier playoff rounds. Of course, Selkirk was lucky enough to play with the New York Yankees in the heyday of Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, when it was largely expected that they would make it to the October Classic each year. The table below lists the Canadian batters with the most post-season games played. Jeff Francis (North Delta, BC) holds the record for the most post-season wins by a Canadian. Paxton and Soroka can go after that standard if the Yankees or the Braves go deep into the playoffs. As yet, no Canadian pitcher has ever won a World Series game.

Paxton and Soroka have had exceptional seasons this year and certainly are not just part-time bystanders for their clubs. Soroka has been given consideration for both the NL Cy Young Award and the Rookie of the Year Award almost from the outset in 2019. His final pitching line of 13 wins against 4 losses, with an ERA of 2.68 is one of the best in the league. Indeed, Soroka’s ERA in road games (1.55) is the best in the majors (of course pitching in the batter-friendly Sun Trust Stadium ensures his home-games ERA will be higher).

Paxton started slowly with the Yankees but was nothing short of spectacular in the last two months when he won 10 consecutive starts. During that span, he posted an ERA of 2.25 in yielding an opponent’s batting average of a miniscule .167. His string of 10 consecutive victories in 10 straight starts ranks fourth all-time for the powerhouse Yankees. It is interesting to note that the Yankee’s best string of wins in consecutive starts is held by fellow Canuck Russ Ford (born in Brandon, Man.) when he posted 12 straight wins to close out his 1910 season.

Paxton and Soroka have now become only the seventh Canadian born duo to each record as many as 13 wins in the same season. It is a virtual certainty that the victory total garnered by the first such duo to accomplish this will never be matched. In 1884, St. Thomas, Ont., native Bob Emslie (with 32 wins) and London, Ont., native Bill Mountjoy (19 wins) combined for 51 games won. Fergie Jenkins (Chatham, Ont.) combined twice with Reggie Cleveland (Swift Current, Sask.) and once with John Hiller (Toronto, Ont.) from 1972 to 1974 in reaching 13 plus wins each year. In fact, Cleveland also won 12 games in 1974, and almost made it three Canadians that year (Jenkins had a league leading 25 wins with Texas and Hiller set the Al record for 17 wins by a relief pitcher with the Tigers). Erik Bedard (Navan, Ont.) and Francis had back to back 13+ win seasons apiece in 2006 and 2007. Paxton and Soroka easily produced the best won-lost record of all of those pitching pairs. The table below highlights the achievements of those top Canadian pitching duos.

Paxton failed to pitch into the second inning in his last outing of the regular season. He was removed for precautionary reasons after a 21-pitch first inning in the Yanks' 14-7 victory over the Rangers. Paxton is expected to go through his normal preparation in hopes of drawing the starting assignment for Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the Twins at Yankee Stadium. "I think I could have kept going but they wanted to play it safe and have me completely rested for what comes next," Paxton told reporters after the game on Friday. "I don't think it's going to be anything serious. I could've kept on pitching and worked through it. They wanted me to play it safe." The Yankee ace was diagnosed with nerve irritation in his left glute after undergoing an MRI exam, but the injury is not expected to affect his preparation or availability for the American League Division Series, which begins on Friday, October 4.

It would be nice to see Atlanta and the Yankees make it all the way to the World Series and then see Soroka and Paxton facing each other in the opening game. Even more exiting would be to see these two pitching stars face off in the deciding game seven of the 2019 World Series. A person can dream can’t he?