SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Through the first three days of play in Pool A, Hiram Bithorn Stadium is where good fundamental baseball has gone to die. Seriously, if you’re a coach or instructor looking for do-not-do-this videos to show players, well, there is plenty to choose from, both on the basepaths and in the field.
Canada mostly avoided the slog during an opening 8-2 win over Colombia, pressing the other side and capitalizing on its mistakes, with manager Ernie Whitt saying Sunday afternoon that’s a priority “in every tournament we play in. You give extra outs, you give the opportunity to score more runs. It adds onto our pitcher’s (pitch) count, which of course we're limited to anyway. It’s important to play clean.”
Several hours later, after a rain delay pushed back first pitch some 60 minutes, the Canadians slipped in a gruesome sixth inning keyed by a Josh Naylor error and, suddenly muddying their path forward in this tournament.
A frustrating 4-3 loss to Panama left them at 1-1, behind 2-0 Cuba and Puerto Rico, who meet in a pivotal clash Monday night. Canada is off until Tuesday, when they will start Jordan Balazovic against the Pool A hosts, while Panama (1-2) meets Colombia (0-3) on Monday, with the winner avoiding the need to requalify for the next World Baseball Classic.
Pool A play wraps up Wednesday when Canada plays Cuba and advancing to the quarterfinals remains very possible, although any margin for error is now gone.
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“Bottom line, we have to win and we'll let the math take over from that,” said Whitt. “So our backs are against the wall. We know what we have to do. Hopefully we'll straighten some stuff out and get it done.”
The stuff in need of straightening came during that fateful sixth, when Canada squandered a 2-1 lead in a messy three-run frame.
James Paxton, the retired lefty who last pitched in the majors Aug. 11, 2024, when he left with an injury, came on and walked leadoff man Jose Ramos. After the wind knocked down an Edmundo Sosa rocket that might otherwise have landed in the left-field bleachers, Naylor dropped a clean relay from third baseman Abraham Toro on what should have been the inning’s second out.
After a Luis Castillo pop-out, Miguel Amaya’s grounder was knocked down by sliding second baseman Edouard Julien, who couldn’t relay to load the bases. Pinch-hitter Ruben Tejada followed with a bouncer up the middle that Otto Lopez kept in the infield as the tying run scored, and then his relay home was unwisely cut off by Paxton, allowing another to cross when an out was available. Enrique Bradfield Jr. followed with yet another grounder that remained in the infield. Julien bare-handed it, but was unable to get his footing set for a relay.
“I’ll take the blame for that loss,” said Naylor. “I should have caught that baseball. I didn't and the little things win games. I can't really dwell on it for too long. I made a mistake and move on.”
By the time Jose Caballero flew out to end the inning, Panama had taken a 4-2 lead without pushing a ball out of the infield, Paxton bled despite featuring good stuff and touching 95, and it was just as ugly as all that sounds. Compounding matters is that Laval, Que., born lefty Miguel Cienfuegos stuffed them on just seven pitches in the bottom half of the sixth, keeping the heat reversed.
“You have to keep on fighting,” said Paxton. “You can't give in to the moment. If I give in there, I give up a six-spot. But I kept on fighting every pitch and tried to keep it close as I could.”
Compounding matters is in the bottom of the sixth, Montreal-born lefty Miguel Cienfuegos, who hoped to pitch for Canada but ended up with Panama, where both his parents are from, stuffed them on just seven pitches, and added a clean seventh, too, keeping the heat on.
“Definitely mixed emotions,” Cienfuegos, who reached triple-A in the Padres system last season, said of pitching against Canada. “It's been a day that's been circled in my calendar for months now, just getting ready for that moment. Who knows if I would have pitched today or not, but the preparation was definitely there. … It meant a lot for me, for my family, for the country, everyone back home watching, so honestly, it felt good.”
Once Cienfuegos left, Canada managed to regain momentum in the eighth on a tremendous defensive play.
Owen Caissie collected a Caballero double in left field, relayed it to Lopez, who fired home to get Bradfield, holding the deficit at 4-2. In the bottom half, Caissie hammered a Humberto Mejia changeup to straightaway centre for a double that cashed in Bo Naylor, but pinch-hitter Tyler Black struck out to end that rally.
Josh Naylor singled and stole second in the ninth, but Jared Young struck out to end the game as Canada finished 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Included in that was a bases-loaded one-out opportunity in the fifth, just before the Panama rally, that went for naught.
“It was a big momentum switch after we had a chance to break the game open and we didn't do it. All of a sudden, the other team gets a little momentum and they capitalized on it,” said Whitt. “Again, you've got to play this game clean. You can't give extra outs and we paid for it.”
Jameson Taillon delivered 3.2 innings of one-run ball and did his part to get Canada off to a good start. He settled after allowing an Enrique Bradfield Jr. bunt single that Toro threw away and a walk to Caballero, getting a Leo Bernal double-play ball before escaping unharmed on a Sosa strikeout.
That was the first of seven straight Panama hitters he retired, a streak broken by Leo Bernal’s single leading off the fourth. Two outs later, he was at 58 pitches – the first-round limit is 65 – and Antoine Jean took over, surrendering consecutive singles to Christian Bethancourt and Castillo to tie the game 1-1.
A two-out rally in the bottom half off Jamie Barria restored Canada’s edge as two-out singles by Bo Naylor, Caissie and Denzel Clarke cashed in the go-ahead run. Abraham Toro’s run-scoring double in the second, his third RBI of the tournament, opened the scoring, but he was stranded there, among the many chances the Canadians failed to capitalize on.
“We should've won the game and lost," said Naylor. "But the next time we go out there, it's a new day, a new ballgame.”
One that demands playing the type of clean and tight baseball rare in Pool A so far.
