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Cleveland Guardians Reliever Makes History Among Canadian-Born Players

A Cleveland Guardians reliever made history on Wednesday - and it wasn't Emmanuel Clase.

Brady Farkas

Cleveland Guardians relief pitcher Cade Smith (36) delivers a pitch in the seventh inning against the Chicago Cubs at Progressive Field on Aug 13.
Cleveland Guardians relief pitcher Cade Smith (36) delivers a pitch in the seventh inning against the Chicago Cubs at Progressive Field on Aug 13. / David Richard-Imagn Images
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The Cleveland Guardians beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-4, on Wednesday night at Progressive Field. With the win, they are 6.0 games ahead in the American League Central and they are also just 1.5 games back of the New York Yankees for the best record in the American League. Whoever claims that tile will have homefield advantage throughout the MLB playoffs.

In the win, Guardians reliever Cade Smith made some special history for Canadian-born players. He tossed 1.1 scoreless innings, striking out two.

Per the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame on social media:

And Cade did it!
4th Canadian born reliever ever to strikeout 100+ hitters in a season.
@EricGagne38 137 (2003)
John Hiller 134 (1974), 124 (1973), 117 (1976), 115 (1977)
Eric Gagne 114 (2002), 114 (2004)
Matt Brash 107 (2023)
Cade Smith 100

The 25-year-old Smith has been a revelation for Cleveland, pairing with Emmanuel Clase to make up a dominant back-end of the bullpen. Furthermore, his contributions have been huge considering that top reliever Trevor Stephan has missed the entire season with Tommy John surgery.

Smith is 6-1 this season with a 1.96 ERA. Those 100 strikeouts have come in 73.1 innings. He's appeared in 72 games.

This is his first season in the big leagues. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he played his college ball at Hawaii and was drafted by the Twins in the 16th round of the 2017 draft.

The Guardians and Twins will finish out their series on Thursday afternoon with first pitch coming at 1:10 p.m. ET. Simeon Woods-Richardson pitches against Joey Cantillo.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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