{"id":67953,"date":"2026-03-09T16:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T20:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/canadas-balazovic-plans-to-use-hostile-puerto-rico-crowd-to-my-advantage\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T21:00:00","slug":"canadas-balazovic-plans-to-use-hostile-puerto-rico-crowd-to-my-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/canadas-balazovic-plans-to-use-hostile-puerto-rico-crowd-to-my-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s Balazovic plans to use hostile Puerto Rico crowd ‘to my advantage’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada’s Balazovic plans to use hostile Puerto Rico crowd ‘to my advantage’<\/a>
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https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/mlb\/article\/canadas-balazovic-plans-to-use-hostile-puerto-rico-crowd-to-my-advantage\/<\/a>
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Publish Date: 2026-03-09 16:46:00<\/a>
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CAROLINA, Puerto Rico \u2014 Security had to step in when fans got a little too rowdy around the visitors\u2019 bullpen back on Aug. 12, 2023, as Jordan Balazovic warmed up for the ninth inning of an 8-1 Minnesota Twins win over the Philadelphia Phillies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t really repeat what they were saying \u2026 they don’t really have a filter there,\u201d the right-hander from Mississauga, Ont., making his 16th\u00a0appearance in the majors at the time, recalled Monday with a grin. \u201cAs long as you take it and light a fire under yourself there, you can use their words against them, right? So, I don’t mind it, honestly. I like that more than a silent crowd. Get me upset, get me mad. That’s going to light me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hostile fans awaiting him Tuesday night, when he starts for Canada against host Puerto Rico (7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet) in a high-stakes Pool A clash at the World Baseball Classic, are sure to dial up his adrenaline even more.<\/p>\n

Balazovic isn\u2019t going to be fazed by any of it and he\u2019s relishing the opportunity to silence the crowd, the way he did for the national team at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, when he pitched four innings of an 8-6 win over Cuba.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the type of moment the 27-year-old \u2014 four years removed from being on top-100 prospect lists \u2014 made a priority when he signed with CPBL\u2019s Uni-President Lions, securing the team\u2019s approval for his participation with the national team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big tournament and I\u2019ve always wanted to pitch in this, even before I was in pro ball, watching the older guys play,\u201d said Balazovic. \u201cI always rooted for the guys, but of course you want to be one of the guys on the field and help do what you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

His path to the national team and this tournament is a winding one, filled with stops and starts. A fifth-round pick by the Twins in the 2016 draft, he pitched in the 2019 Futures Game, appeared on top-100 prospect lists on either side of the 2020 pandemic season, worked through injuries in…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canada’s Balazovic plans to use hostile Puerto Rico crowd ‘to my advantage’ https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/mlb\/article\/canadas-balazovic-plans-to-use-hostile-puerto-rico-crowd-to-my-advantage\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canada-WBC-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67955,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67953\/revisions\/67955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}