Elliott: Not enough big leaguers, not enough strikes
St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) went 8-for-13 in four games for Canada in the World Baseball Classic. Photo: Baseball Canada
By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
PHOENIX, Ariz. _ In the end it came down to two things that were lacking:
_ Not enough major leaguers.
_ Not enough pitches for strikes.
Leading 3-2 in the sixth, fifth-ranked Mexico scored four times on its way to a 10-3 win over 14th-ranked Canada Wednesday afternoon before 17,245 fans at Chase Field. And within an hour, Mexico was boarding its charter to Miami and the World Baseball Classic semi-final round. Canada finishes 2-2 in Pool C.
Colombia would’ve had to have beaten USA by three runs Wednesday night for Canada to jump back into the two-team picture in the tie-breaking system and advance to the next round. They did not ... losing 3-2.
Canuck pitchers walked 10 Mexico hitters, hit three more batters and threw a wild pitch to finish with 24 walks in 33 innings, four hit batters and three wild pitches.
Not enough strikes.
Not enough talent.
An amateur coach emailed during the game asking “how on earth can WE lose to Mexico?”
Well, the Mexico team here is probably better than Canada on most nights.
Mexico had 20 players currently on MLB 40-man rosters 15 of what you would call established major leaguers (more than 50 games played or on the mound for 25 or more outings in 2022).
The major leaguers start with Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes, from the Tampa Bay Rays and continues: Julio Urías and Austin Barnes, of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Luis Urias and Rowdy Tellez, of the Milwaukee Brewers, Alex Verdugo and Jarren Duran, of the Boston Red Sox, Giovanny Gallegos, of the St. Louis Cardinals, Joey Meneses, of the Washington Nationals, Alek Thomas, of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Lui Cessa, of the Cincinnati Reds, Patrick Sandoval, of the Los Angeles Angels, Jose Urquidy, of the Houston Astros and Taijuan Walker, of the New York Mets.
The Canucks had only two: Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) and Cal Quantrill (Port Hope, Ont.), what with Freddie Freeman injuring his hamstring and leaving after two at bats in Tuesday’s win over Colombia.
The pre-WBC thought process -- when O’Neill’s presence was in doubt -- was that Freeman would seldom see a strike. So, without Freeman, Mexico took a similar approach.
So how lonely was it in the batting order?
“Urquidy pitched me tough,” said O’Neill, who singled and walked twice in four at-bats. “He was throwing a lot of curve balls on the corner. But I missed a hanging breaking ball in my last at-bat.
“This is a finicky kind of tournament. You’re ready, but you’re not ready. I had a few hits and Freddie was motoring around the bases. I don’t know the perfect time to have it. Wasn’t the World Cup the same? ... They had it in December because of the heat in Qatar.”
Urquidy has pitched more innings as a Astro than any other Mexican-born player and has the most World Series wins (three) by a foreign-born player in big-league history. Plus, he is the only Mexican-born pitcher with multiple wins in the World Series and the second Mexican-born starter to earn a WS win, joining LHP Fernando Valenzuela (1981) ... or “Caracus,” as Warren Cromartie used to call him.
He struck out five in four innings throwing 62 pitches -- 44 strikes -- allowing two runs on six hits and a walk.
Down 2-0 when they came to the plate, Julien led off with a double, 3B Abraham Toro (Longueuil, Que.) singled and O’Neill walked to load the bases. SS Lopez singled home a run but Urquidy escaped the jam striking out Bo Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.) and retiring Caissie on a grounder.
Whenever or where ever it is been held - this time it was in the spring again - you can count on a few of Canada’s best not being available. This year it was Nick Pivetta (Nanaimo, BC), Joey Votto (Etobicoke, Ont.) who had shoulder surgery and had problems getting insured, Josh Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.), Jameson Taillon, who had pitched for Canada before and was committed to pitching before signing with the Chicago Cubs, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Montreal, Que.), who chose the Dominican Republic and then stayed in Dunedin and Charles Leblanc (Laval, Que.), who injured his back. Others missed were Zach Pop (Brampton, Ont.), Jordan Romano (Markham, Ont.) and Rowan Wick (North Vancouver, BC) for important reasons like trying to make their own teams vs. this event which pays roughly $6,500 a man.
What you did see on display was eight prospects ranked in the top 100 by MLB Pipeline or in their respect clubs top 30 up and comers ... the most of any nation in the tournament: Bo Naylor (Mississauga, Ont.), fourth with Cleveland, 64th overall; INF Edouard Julien (Quebec, Que.), fourth with the Minnesota Twins; Owen Caissie (Burlington, Ont.), 13th with the Cubs; Denzel Clarke (Pickering, Ont.), 13th with the Oakland A’s, INF Otto Lopez (Montreal, Que.), 14th with the Blue Jays; OF Dasan Brown (Oakville, Ont.), 15th with the Blue Jays; LHP Mitch Bratt (Newmarket, Ont.), 17th with the Texas Rangers, and 3B Damiano Palmegiani (Surrey, BC), 29th with the Blue Jays.
That covers down on the farm, as for off the farm five pitchers came out of retirement to pitch for their love of both manager Ernie Whitt and Greg Hamilton: farmer Phillippe Aumont (Gatineau, Que.), Andrew Albers (North Battleford, Sask.), John Axford (Port Dover, Ont.), Scott Mathieson (Aldergrove, BC) and Adam Loewen (Surrey, BC).
Albers came on in relief of Aumont and retired Verdugo on a liner to LF Jacob Robson (Windsor, Ont.). Then Albers had a 1-2-3 fifth, but he walked Urias and an out later gave up a bloop single to centre, which put runners on second and third. Cade Smith (Abbotsford, BC) took over and walked Barnes, one of three the Dodgers catcher had.
Post-season hero Arozarena doubled to left, clearing the bases, then Meneses singled home Arozarena ... 7-2. Roger over and out.
“If one of two balls were hit a few feet either way it would have been a different story, that one hurts,” said Albers. “All you can ask for is that chance to win that one game to advance. We got there. We had that chance.”
Canada lost 9-2 to the Dominican Republic, 4-1 to Colombia and 8-0 to Team USA in Miami at the last WBC, This time it had two wins and two loses, as they won two of three in 2006 and failed to advance on run differential.
So, who was the best of the young bucks the veterans had never seen?
Albers: “Matt Brash (Kingston, Ont.) was impressive. His arm is electric. I’m looking forward to watching him and a lot of these guys progress.”
O’Neill: “Julien. He has quite a lot of poise. He set the tone for us a number of times.”
Whitt predicted an all-star career for Julien: “He’s a gamer and he’ll have a great career.”
“I’m proud of every guy in that room,” said Whitt who began managing Canada in 1999, after Cito Gaston turned down the job. “They played the game the way it was supposed to be played. They played with pride and passion. What more can you ask for?
“I mean, we hit the ball hard. Every time we hit the ball hard, it seemed like it was at somebody. We have days like that, it just didn’t pan out for us this time. I’m very confident that the team will bounce back in 2026 and be a force.”
Three more years of preparations and commitments which Canada hopes will stick.
* * *
Game 10: Team USA rode the coat tails of Mickey Mantle 2.0 -- Mike Trout. Trout tripled and drove in three runs in a 3-2 win over Colombia. Manager Mark De Rosa received six scoreless innings from his bullpen to finish second and advance to Miami.
Trout tripled into the right-centre gap just two batters into the game, but remained there. He had a run-scoring single in the third. Colombia scored twice in the bottom half, but Trout drilled an RBI single to score Mookie Betts from second base in his next at-bat to stake Team USA to a 1-0 lead. Colombia responded immediately in the bottom of the third, taking the lead on a Gio Urshela sacrifice fly and an RBI double by Reynaldo Rodriguez. Trout singled home two in the fifth. Relievers Kendall Graveman, Daniel Bard, David Bednar, Jason Adam, Devin Williams and Ryan Pressly each put up a zero.
* * *
The Good: Naylor may have whiffed in the first, but he homered in the fourth, cutting the lead to 3-2, 414 feet to left centre ... Julien homered 388 feet to right centre off Samuel Zazueta. He hit .538 for the WBC, while O’Neill batted .615 ... Toro started an inning-ending double play in the first ... Aumont pitched a scoreless 1 2/3 innings in relief of Zastryzny ... 1B Jared Young (Prince George, BC) reacted quickly to throw out Urias at the plate in the seventh ... LF Robson made a fine catch against the wall on a ball hit by Meneses in the third, as well as hitting a single and stealing a base … LHP Evan Rutckyj (Windsor, Ont.) and Trevor Bridgen (North York, Ont.) had scoreless outings.
* * *
The Bad: LHP Rob Zastryzny (Edmonton, Alta.) hit lead-off man Arozarena (Whitt said his replay man told him the ball hit off the bat and appealed but lost ... memories of the Pan Am protests in Winnipeg), gave up an infield single to Meneses, balked each runner up 90 feet. Then ex-Jay Rowdy Tellez hit a two-run single … Barnes walked in the second and Arozarena doubled him home ... Indigo Diaz (North Vancouver, BC) gave up a homer to Tellez -- it was not his first.
* * *
Lineup change: With Freddie Freeman out with a hamstring injury from the second at-bat against Colombia, 3B Toro was in the No. 2 spot. Jared Young (Prince George, BC) was at first base, O’Neill was at DH and Clarke was in centre.
* * *
Who are the guys in the hockey helmets? Well, against Colombia they wore Canadian toques and Larry Walker jerseys. And on Wednesday they wore black helmets: Scott Neiles (Winnipeg, Man.) and Tony Carnolas (Toronto, Ont.) both of Home Run Sports, Jason Rabjohn from Rawlings, Dean Opyc, formerly of Rawlings, Lorne Relf (Springfield, Man.) of CCM and Kelsey McIntosh of Baseball Canada. The sports gear rivalries continue.