{"id":2763,"date":"2023-03-12T12:11:45","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T19:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/?p=2763"},"modified":"2025-12-18T18:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T02:26:05","slug":"canada-great-britain-pregame-20230312","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/2023\/03\/12\/canada-great-britain-pregame-20230312\/","title":{"rendered":"WBC: Great Britain Confident, Canada Not Taking Them Lightly"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Great Britain Confident, Canada Not Taking Them Lightly<\/h2>\n<p>PHOENIX, Mar. 12 \u2014 Despite the 6\u20132 loss to Team USA Saturday night, Team Great Britain feels confident heading into their Sunday afternoon game against Team Canada. Left fielder <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=rudd--000jad&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=sportrelay.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jaden Rudd<\/a><\/strong> said they played a good game. Manager <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=spence002dre&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=sportrelay.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Drew Spencer<\/a><\/strong> said after Saturday\u2019s game, \u201c\u2026my pitchers executed, and I\u2019m proud of them. They did a fantastic job, and every one of them deserves to go home and hold their head up high.\u201d The team even took a 1\u20130 lead over heavily favored Team USA, something Spencer called \u201ca great moment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team Canada manager <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/whitter01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=sportrelay.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ernie Whitt<\/a><\/strong> said of Team Great Britain, \u201cThey&#8217;re a scrappy team. They battled at every at-bat, didn&#8217;t give any at-bats away, and showed that they should be in this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Great Britain Starting a Righty, but Canada Expecting to See Lefties<\/h3>\n<p><a id=\"F-u_9yXPRlVNENzeDMyV6g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1472907514\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'F-u_9yXPRlVNENzeDMyV6g',sig:'K-ElRcYKMvYyvDSDYZnd-TH8tY3kutHHLlfwZy4J1mE=',w:'505px',h:'594px',items:'1472907514',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><br \/>\nDespite Canada having such a lefty-heavy batting lineup, Spencer has tapped righty <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/morriak01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=sportrelay.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Akeel Morris<\/a><\/strong> as the starting pitcher. Spencer said, \u201cWe\u2019re really confident in how Morris matches up against their hitters. It just felt like a good matchup for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This move \u201cshocked\u201d the Team Canada coaching staff, in the words of hitting coach <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/walkela01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=sportrelay.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Larry Walker<\/a><\/strong>. \u201cWe\u2019re used to lefties being thrown against us.\u201d But Walker also pointed out that Team Great Britain \u201cheld some of their lefties back\u201d against Team USA, so it\u2019s a safe bet that his team will see some lefties.<\/p>\n<p>Another part of Great Britain\u2019s game Saturday that Walker pointed out is their use of <a href=\"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/category\/rockies\/\">Colorado Rockies<\/a> prospect <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=peters007mic&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=sportrelay.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-03-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Michael Petersen<\/a><\/strong> in the eighth inning. He said, \u201cI&#8217;m hoping one thing that <em>won&#8217;t<\/em> give us trouble is that they threw the guy throwing 102 miles an hour last night in the Rockies organization. Maybe he&#8217;s a little tired and won&#8217;t come in the game today,\u201d adding a chuckle. But he said the approach is the same as he took during his Hall-of-Fame career, which largely was with the Rockies. \u201cThere are pitchers that are gonna be throwing a baseball, and you got to try to hit a strike. It&#8217;s the same in every level in every country, and it\u2019s just the way it is. Don&#8217;t think anything is different than what you&#8217;ve done your whole career getting up to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Any Team Can Beat Any Team<\/h3>\n<p>The bottom line, according to Whitt, is \u201cany team can beat any team at any time in a one-game set.\u201d Consequently, Team Canada will not take Team Great Britain lightly, despite being heavily favored. \u201cIf it\u2019s a seven-game set,\u201d Whitt said, \u201cit might be a little different. One day you might have everything going for you and the other team doesn&#8217;t. It&#8217;s just the way it is, and that&#8217;s the beauty of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Main Photo:<\/h4>\n<p><a id=\"bj7VbEuHTA1cd5PVT23k2w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1472621305\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'bj7VbEuHTA1cd5PVT23k2w',sig:'FeD9W-qlIK1YG7tK4mtjsEUwx0wGZeig2PYiC7Zj-fc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1472621305',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great Britain Confident, Canada Not Taking Them Lightly PHOENIX, Mar. 12 \u2014 Despite the 6\u20132 loss to Team USA Saturday night, Team Great Britain feels confident heading into their Sunday afternoon game against Team Canada. Left fielder Jaden Rudd said they played a good game. Manager Drew Spencer said after Saturday\u2019s game, \u201c\u2026my pitchers executed, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2222],"tags":[493,645,636,644,643,642,646],"class_list":["post-2763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-world-baseball-classic","tag-2023-world-baseball-classic","tag-akeel-morris","tag-drew-spencer","tag-ernie-whitt","tag-jaden-rudd","tag-larry-walker","tag-michael-petersen","pmpro-has-access","eq-blocks"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Great Britain Confident, Canada Not Taking Them Lightly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Team Canada, despite being heavily favored, knows Team Great Britain is capable of beating them in the World Baseball Classic.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/2023\/03\/12\/canada-great-britain-pregame-20230312\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great Britain Confident, Canada Not Taking Them Lightly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Team Canada, despite being heavily favored, knows Team Great Britain is capable of beating them in the World Baseball Classic.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/2023\/03\/12\/canada-great-britain-pregame-20230312\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Major League Baseball\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/100088190202878\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thompsontalks\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-12T19:11:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-19T02:26:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/Canada-Great-Britain-20230312-01.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"594\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"396\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Evan M. 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Thompson, Editor-in-chief","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/cropped-Evan-on-field-120x120.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sportrelay.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/cropped-Evan-on-field-120x120.jpg","caption":"Evan M. Thompson, Editor-in-chief"},"description":"Evan is the owner and sole contributor of Thompson Talks, a website discussing the Big Four North American Pro Sports as well as soccer. He covered the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2019 to 2023, the Colorado Rockies in 2024, and has covered the Athletics since Spring Training 2025. He also is our National Writer. His first and biggest love is baseball. Evan lives in Gilbert, Arizona and loves history, especially of sports. He is a member of the Hemond Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). 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