Canada exits World Baseball Classic in quarterfinal loss to USA

Canadian player Bo Naylor swings at a pitch during the quarterfinal against the USA. (Credit: Mary DeCicco/Getty Images)

Team Canada’s furthest-ever run in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) came to an end Friday night in Houston.

The team lost 5-3 against the Americans in their quarterfinal matchup.

Canada earned their spot after dominating their round-robin pool. They defeated Cuba in their last game, who will miss the tournament’s knockout round for the first time.

USA’s starting pitcher Logan Webb put out an impressive showing, allowing only four hits and one walk in nearly five innings. 

On the other hand, Canadian starter Michael Soroka surrendered three runs in the first three innings. 

“It kind of hurt, a lot of people kind of looked at us and thought that we were necessarily not going to make it out of our pool for whatever reason,” said Soroka. “We expected to do that and we knew we were going to have to put on a good fight today.”

Two of those runs happened after Abraham Toro threw a ball over the head of first baseman Josh Naylor off a hit from American Alex Bregman with the bases loaded and two out. 

Canada’s only error would allow Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge to score.

The game stayed relatively quiet until the sixth inning, when Americans Brice Turang and Pete Crow-Armstrong brought the score to 5-0 with consecutive RBI singles.

Canada started to respond after the USA relief pitcher Logan Webb was taken out of the game for Brad Keller. Tyler Black earned an RBI by bringing Owen Caissie home off a single. This was quickly followed by a two-run moon shot by Bo Naylor, bringing the game to a score of 5-3.

Things seemed like they would continue to go well for the Canadians as Edouard Julien and Otto Lopez both got on base in the seventh. They unfortunately were left stranded after Josh Naylor popped up, followed by Tyler O’Neill and Caissie’s strikeouts.

American Mason Miller was able to close the game without Canada scoring another run. 

“We played a good ball game,” said Naylor after the matchup. “It sucks that we lost, but it is what it is at the end of the day. We take those lessons from it and try to learn from them going forward.”

As of writing, USA will go on to face the Dominican Republic in the semis, who defeated the South Koreans 10-0 by a mercy rule. 

The best Canada had done before this WBC was placing ninth in 2006, the inaugural tournament. This year proved that Canada is an emerging power on the baseball world stage. 

“The guys are very disappointed, but I told them they’ve got nothing to hang their head about,” said Canada’s manager Ernie Whitt after the game. “They should walk very proudly.”