A quick spin after firing a third strike, an exuberant scream, a jump in his step as he trotted off towards the dugout and a high-five for his catcher.
We’ve seen that emotional fire before.
It was hard not to smile watching Matt Wilkinson take the hill for Baseball Canada on one of the sport’s biggest international stages on Friday night.
The Dawgs Academy and Okotoks Dawgs alum proceeded to shock the baseball world by throwing two scoreless innings, keeping Canada in a tight ball game while striking out two of the sport’s biggest stars in Cal Raleigh and Bryce Harper.
After he finished off both punchouts, the young man – affectionately known as “Tugboat” – bounced off the mound as Western Canadian Baseball League fans had seen time and time again.
It reminded me of one specific moment: when Wilkinson closed out the Dawgs’ championship victory over the Moose Jaw Miller Express in 2022 with an impressive two-inning save.
While the circumstances were different this time around with Canada falling 5-3 to the United States, the performance put a wrap on an historic World Baseball Classic.
It was the first time Canada had made it into the quarterfinals and came within a few bounces of knocking off a powerhouse American team.
The boys in red and white showed the world how far baseball has come in our country, inspired a nation and added to the buzz this game has had in the last few months.
WRITTEN OFF EARLY
It’s wild to think that Canada wasn’t even supposed to make it as far as they did.
The story before the tournament even began wasn’t about who made the team, but who wasn’t on the roster.
No Freddie Freeman. No Nick Pivetta. No Cade Smith, Erik Sabrowski, Jonah Tong or Matt Brash.
“No chance,” many baseball watchers pontificated.
The game of “what if” and “what about” started to get played in all corners of the country, so much so that some were calling the decision-making of Baseball Canada architect Greg Hamilton and his team into question (particularly former Baseball Quebec vice-president and Quebec Capitales president Michel Laplante claiming Hamilton “didn’t do his homework” with regard to players from his province).
Even I admittedly said that it was hard to predict how Canada would do in pool play, as I saw a path where they could go 4-0 and I also saw a path where they went 0-4.
Part of that trouble came that, for the first time, they weren’t in the “pool of death” with the U.S. and Mexico, where it felt like a foregone conclusion that they would, at best, finish 2-2 and out of the top two making it into the quarters.
Given the team’s offense and upside of the pitching staff you saw with the mix of young and old, I thought there was a good chance their record would be pretty good.
EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS
Canada set the tone right off the bat with a decisive 8-2 victory over Colombia.
They then put themselves into a bind by losing 4-3 to Panama, meaning they essentially needed to win their final two games against Puerto Rico and Cuba to get into the knockout stage.
Embracing the gritty performances of Canadian teams of the past, the 2026 squad gutted out a 3-2 win over Puerto Rico then hammered a deflated Cuban team 7-2 to not only punch their ticket to the quarterfinals, but also top spot in their pool.
The storyline quickly changed from “what about” to “where did these guys come from?”
Canada’s bullpen, panned by many as its biggest weakness, had helped the team ERA drop to a miniscule 1.50 through four games after historically having numbers that started somewhere between “5” and “8.”
Interestingly, it was the young offensive core that couldn’t seem to click in a consistent manner, as witnessed in the loss to Panama where a combination of 10 runners left on base and a trio of errors were the difference between a record of 3-1 and 4-0.
Read that again: they were a couple of bounces away from a 4-0 record.
A DATE WITH THE U.S.
As fate would have it, finishing with the top record in their pool only seemed to delay an inevitable battle with Canada’s neighbours to the south.
The U.S. had their own, shall we say, “colourful” road to also finishing 3-1 in the round robin, thanks to manager Mark DeRosa famously saying they had “punched their ticket” after their third win then getting knocked around in the finale against Italy.
Whether it was an honest mistake or a ridiculous blunder, when you have what is essentially a “Dream Team” for a roster, it’s easy to be viewed as a favourite to win the whole World Baseball Classic.
The prognosticators were at it again, placing the U.S. as the No. 3-ranked team in the power rankings of the remaining eight teams, while Canada sat in … eighth.
The heavy underdogs turned to Calgary’s Michael Soroka on the mound, and he delivered as effective of a start as you could ask for, giving up one run in the first before a 1-2-3 second inning.
He got a pair of quick outs in the third before a throwing error by third baseman Abraham Toro on a ball hit by Alex Bregman resulted in two runs crossing the plate. That lead manager Ernie Whitt to emerge from the dugout to call upon young hurler Micah Ashman to clean things up, striking out Roman Anthony to end the threat.
From there, the bullpen outperformed its expectations again, thanks to the combination of Ashman, Philippe Aumont (who got tagged with the other two American runs), Adam Macko (of Stony Plain and Vauxhall Academy fame) and Wilkinson.
Again, it was the offense that left a few too many ducks on the pond, with seven stranded runners through the contest, most notably with two in the first inning against U.S. starter Logan Webb, who was painting the edges through nearly five innings.
Tyler Black had an RBI single to get Canada on the board, then Bo Naylor delivered with a two-run home run to get Canada within two after the sixth inning.
But that was all Canada could muster and the historic run came to an early end, although still proving many doubters wrong and setting the stage for bigger things to come.
WE’RE NOT GOING AWAY
The performances of Macko and Wilkinson certainly put their names on the international baseball map, but in the bigger picture, it’s a sign of things to come for Canada.
With a pipeline now featuring several young MLB players, a growing network of prospects in the minors, and a plethora of college talent, Canada has the potential to field an even better team whenever the next WBC is held (2029 or 2030).
Imagine a team that also features all the aforementioned players as well as up-and-comers like Tristan Peters, Mitch Bratt, Garrett Hawkins, David Calabrese, Nathan Flewelling, Tim Piasentin, Emilien Pitre, Myles Naylor, and Charles Davalan, among many others.
That pipeline doesn’t look like it’s drying up any time soon either, as highly touted prospects like Sean Duncan, Robert Omidi, Easton Kitura, Brendan Lawson, Jalen Jacob and many others are turning heads at showcases and tournaments realize their full potential.
That high school talent is continually being exposed to high-level experiences, including Baseball Canada Junior National Team trips and, soon, The Road to Okotoks will give some of these players a chance to play for a national championship with their academy programs.
If you drill down even deeper, we are already starting to see how the famed “Blue Jays Bump” is having an impact on grassroots registration for baseball after Toronto’s run to the World Series.
Just like how Wilkinson grew up idolizing fellow Ladner, B.C. native James Paxton (and got to play with him at this WBC), there will be dozens of kids from coast to coast to coast who will believe that they, too, can play the game on the biggest international stage.
So everyone take note: Canada isn’t going away any time soon.
Tales of Baseball 