*Today is the ninth anniversary of Guelph, Ont., native Scott Diamond’s MLB debut. We thought it would be fitting to re-run this profile of the Canadian left-hander written by J.P. Antonacci that was originally published on June 14, 2016. In this article, Diamond talks about his big league debut.

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June 14, 2016

By J.P. Antonacci

Canadian Baseball Network

While at Blue Jays spring training camp in Dunedin last March, Scott Diamond said it would mean “everything” to pitch for the team he grew up idolizing as a young baseball fan in Guelph.

He got that chance, as the left-hander was called up Monday from triple-A Buffalo to bolster Toronto’s overtaxed bullpen. 

Diamond, 29, last pitched in the majors with the Minnesota Twins in 2013, and has yet to make a big-league relief appearance. Typically a starter, he could be used as the long man out of the Jays pen. 

Whatever his role, toeing the rubber for his favourite team in his native land would be the culmination of Diamond’s baseball journey.

SOLID FUNDAMENTALS

“It’s a funny story,” Dan Thompson says of the first time he saw Diamond pitch. 

Thompson, then the coach of Team Ontario, was at a ballpark in Scarborough one August evening, following up on a tip to scout a different player.

But the 15-year-old Guelph lefty with sound mechanics and “good mound presence” caught Thompson’s eye. 

“So I got on the phone the next day, called his parents, called his coach, who I knew… and recruited him.”

Once Diamond joined Team Ontario, his coach got to know a level-headed young man who could spot a baseball like few of his peers.

“He was a mature kid at that age, on and off the field,” Thompson recalled. “He handled himself off the field as well, which comes from his parents.”

Diamond, who credits Thompson as a formative influence on his career, excelled over his three years with Team Ontario, twirling several no-hitters and one-hitters in tournaments across Canada and in the United States. At the 2005 Canada Summer Games in Regina, the 19-year-old started the gold-medal game and beat British Columbia 5-1. 

With “seven or eight” of his teammates turning pro, Diamond let himself entertain hopes of possibly being drafted by a major-league club. 

“We always seemed to have scouts around. But I was such an undersized, soft-throwing lefty that, you know, I might be around when the scouts were there, and they might watch me, but (getting drafted) was never really a realistic possibility,” he told Canadian Baseball Network during spring training. 

“But I think the idea of them being there at least put the dream in my mind that it could happen.”

His more realistic aim was to parlay his baseball talent into a scholarship at an American university. “That was my main drive. I thought baseball would just be a great chance to pay for school,” Diamond said.

Specifically, he wanted to go to Binghamton, a Division 1 school in upstate New York with a well-regarded engineering program. So Thompson called up a contact at the school and arranged for their scouts to drive up and watch the teenager pitch. 

Despite sleet and snow threatening to scuttle the game altogether, Diamond’s command impressed the scouts enough for the school to offer him a spot. He studied engineering, setting himself up for a great post-baseball career. 

But baseball wasn’t done with him.

ROAD TO THE BIGS

As a Binghamton Bearcat, Diamond turned heads right away, being named the America East Rookie of the Year in 2005. 

His strong sophomore season put him on the professional radar, as did leading the collegiate Coastal Plain League with a 0.50 earned-run average over 54 1/3 innings in the summer of 2006.

The Atlanta Braves signed Diamond as an amateur free agent in 2007, prompting him to put his studies on the back burner.

(He would later finish his degree as a systems engineer. “It took me way longer than expected, but I’m ecstatic that I was able to do it,” he said. “And that was all because my professors were so accommodating.”)

Thompson, who today is director of baseball operations with the Ontario Terriers, said he was thrilled for his former player. “I was real happy for him. I got along very well with Scott. He was a really good listener, and his willingness to learn was great.”

Over the next few seasons, Diamond pitched his way up the minor-league ladder, and got a taste of life on the top rung when he played his first game at Rogers Centre during the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Diamond’s family and many friends from Binghamton made the trip to Toronto to see him pitch against Team Italy. 

“Even though we lost that game, I was able to pitch three innings and get my welcome to the stadium and the big league-type atmosphere. It was exciting,” he recalled. “Seeing these faces that you’ve seen on TV, and now you’re facing them. And it kind of made me steel up a little bit that that was what I wanted to do.” 

Diamond said it was also motivating for him to see a good number of Canadians on major league rosters – proof that getting from Guelph to The Show was far from an impossible dream.

“There’s a lot of Canadian baseball players now, and I think a lot of that has to do with Bob Elliott and Greg Hamilton and what they’ve been able to do with Team Canada,” Diamond said, referring to the veteran baseball journalist and Baseball Canada’s director of national teams, respectively.

“I really think that Hammy’s been just such a key access point for so many guys getting exposure. Even when I was younger, there was such a strong national program. Creating that exposure nationwide really opened it up. I think that definitely speaks a lot to Greg and his tenacity in doing all that.”

THE SHOW

Having ascended to triple-A Gwinnet, Diamond had hopes of pitching for the Braves in 2011. Instead, he was left unprotected in the Rule 5 draft, and the Minnesota Twins picked him up during spring training.

He admits the move caught him off-guard, but he was welcomed to his new club by fellow Canadian Justin Morneau (New Westminster, B.C.). The Twins worked out a trade with Atlanta and optioned Diamond to triple-A Rochester.

Now 24 years old and faced with another long year in the minors, he was at a crossroads. He still had a passion for the game, but he wasn’t going to hang on forever if making the majors wasn’t in the cards. So he set a goal of pitching in the big leagues by age 25. 

On July 18, 2011, less than two weeks before his 25th birthday, he made his debut at Target Field, starting the bottom half of a doubleheader against the Indians.

“Pitching that first game was pretty exciting,” Diamond said.

“I remember Morneau told me, look, take the moment in when you first step on the mound. Do a full circle, embrace it, really enjoy it for the moment that it is. But as soon as you toe that rubber, know that this is the same 60 feet six inches, and this is what you’re here for.”

Diamond was pulled from his first start with one out in the seventh. His final line read four runs (three earned) on seven hits. 

That solid debut was only a taste of what was in store. After joining the Twins for good in May 2012, Diamond was Minnesota’s best pitcher the rest of the way, winning 12 games in 27 starts, posting a 3.54 ERA and leading the American League with 1.6 walks allowed per nine innings.

The highlight of his breakout season was a complete-game shutout against Cleveland on July 27, three days before his 26th birthday. Pouring in strike after strike, he allowed just three hits, striking out six and walking none.

“I remember I had a no-hitter going into the fifth. Everything just seemed to be clicking that day. Mentally I was locked in,” Diamond said. “Everything just fell in place, and it was definitely a night to remember, for sure.”

He left the field serenaded by 38,000 cheering fans, with fireworks illuminating the night sky over Target Field.

“It was fun,” Diamond said, smiling. “Probably the coolest thing was after the game they immediately hand me the headphones to get on the mic with MLB Network. That was pretty surreal.” 

His banner year also included his first major-league appearance in his home country, a start against the Blue Jays in the final game of the season.

With his parents and friends in the stands, Diamond said it was all he could do to steady his nerves. Then, near-disaster struck. “Rajai Davis hit my first pitch right back off my leg. They almost pulled me right then and there,” he chuckled. 

Diamond stayed in and only gave up two runs over his five innings of work, though Toronto starter Brandon Morrow was better on the day.

But the score hardly mattered. Taking the mound used by the Blue Jay greats he grew up watching was a dream come true for the kid from Guelph, who looked forward to building on his success come next season. 

The baseball gods had other plans.

COMING HOME

The Twins had Diamond pencilled in as their 2013 Opening Day starter. But the lefty had off-season surgery to remove bone spurs from his throwing elbow, a procedure that kept him off the field until mid-April, and ultimately led to a disappointing season that saw him post a 6-13 record with a 5.43 ERA.

He started the 2014 season in the minors, and was released by Minnesota that summer. After minor league stints with Cincinnati and Tampa Bay, Diamond jumped at Toronto’s offer of an invite to spring training this year. 

As a starter with the Bisons, he posted a 3.16 ERA in 74 innings (12 starts), with a 37-14 strikeout-to-walk ratio. 

Diamond doesn’t have overpowering stuff, depending instead on pinpoint control of his off-speed offerings to coax ground ball outs. Having finally found the feel for his curveball, the last of his pitches to come back following surgery, the Canadian will look to keep big-league hitters off balance while wearing the maple leaf on his cap.

“I’ve had a pretty exciting career already, and I’m really just trying to add on and continue and enjoy it for the moments, and for whatever happens,” he said. 

“Any time I step on the mound now, it’s a reminder that I’m pretty lucky, and excited to be where I am. Especially here with Toronto.”