Well, last week was Canada Day, but we still can talk to great Canadian James Paxton. Thanks a lot for your time, James, appreciate it. Absolutely. We've seen you pitch obviously. You've done a great job for the Dodgers all season long. How has the experience been being on a new team in a new city and still being very good for the team. It's been great and I've had an awesome experience here. Teammates are awesome, coaching
staff, training staff, training staff. Everybody's treating really well, taking great care of me. Yeah, I feel like I was just welcome with open arms. We've heard from other pitchers that the Dodgers do it better than most teams around baseball. Have you experienced that firsthand? Yeah, you know, I really have. I've gotten a lot of help with some pitches. You know, I came in and I needed help with my change up, and I really got to help a lot of help there. And you know,
I'm kind of evolving in the way that I pitch. I don't have quite the same stuff I used to have, and they're they're helping me make that, make that change and learning how to pitch with different stuff. And it's been it's been great. Is that the first step to understand that you are evolving, That James Paxton at this stage of your career is not that James Paxton from even five years ago. Yeah, you know, I think you
see it happen to all pictures, most pictures. You know, you get a little older and you lose some velocity, maybe lose certain sharpness on certain certain pitches, and you have to learn how to pitch a little differently. And you know that can be tough, and it has been, you know, frustrating and hard. But I've had a lot of help here to to help me learn how to make that work best, and it's been good experience.
You always hear about love language when it comes to relationships, when it comes to pitching, if somebody says the same thing but in a different way, does it click for a picture more than maybe somebody else saying the same thing. Yeah, you know, I've heard that. It just depends, I think different people a little kind of grasp on it with things that are
said differently. You know, so a lot of people can say the same thing to you, but it just takes you know, someone saying in a way that you understand that really, like you said, clicks with you. And I feel like they've done a really good job of helping me with that and you know, finding things that help me figure things out. What does Connor McGinnis so do so well that it seems to really click with so many pitchers. I think he's just really good at understanding, you know, pitch
grips and stuff and how guys throw the baseball. And he's really good at just explaining how the ball moves and how to create movement and stuff like that. He's helped me tremendously with my change up and my two seamer I changed my grip and my two team just the other day and really help with the
movement. So, you know, I think he's just got so much experience working with different guys too, that he knows different things to try and trust, right, he builds that trust with the with the pitcher, And how does that trust form? Does it come from seeing what the ball does when you change things or does it How does the trust start to form? You know, I think it's just his personality. You know, he's very easy to talk to, and you know, I think he just like he said,
everyone knows how experienced he is and stuff. How many guys he's worked with and helped, and he's very patient with guys. And he also, you know, is very good at cheering you on and you know, encouraging you to keep on trying stuff. I've actually heard change up in James Paxton a lot more during this season, so I guess he's really trying to encourage you to throw that pitch. Yeah, you know, it's a pitch that I've never really used a whole bunch of my career, but like I said,
where I'm not right now with my career myself. It's a pitch that is extremely useful. I've heard Kershaw talk about change up envy. Do you have change up envy as well? Oh? For sure, you know guys with great change jobs. It's a pitch that's so effective, especially you've got a really good one, So it's fun to kind of play with and have some success with it now. James Paxton is our guest in front of first Pitch, and James, you've been unbelievable. I feel like Houdini level where
you're able to navigate in and out of traffic. How have you been able to do that so successfully all season? Just sticking with my process, you know. So I'm on the mound and I'm giving everything I got in every pitch and doesn't matter what's going on around me. I'm focused on throwing my next pitch, and you know, just I think just having that mental kind of approach has helped me work through situations. Were you I know I mentioned
at the beginning of this that you're a proud Canadian. What was it like for you when you saw Eric Gagne last week be introduced and throwing out the ceremonial first pitch. It's pretty cool, you know. It's it's awesome to see those guys that represented Canada so well and had so much success, you know, come out and just be examples of what you know Canadian baseball players can be. And he's a great one. What is baseball like for a young man in Canada? Is it as big of a deal as hockey is
or are you outlier when you decide I'm going to pursue baseball. You know, I think it's getting more popular. There's definitely some good leagues up there. There's not as many as in the States, obviously, but there's some great programs and there's a lot of really good baseball players coming out of Canada these day. Yeah. Are you a big hockey fan? I would say I'm a big hockey fan. I enjoy I really like watching it live live. Hockey is are my favorite sports to watch. I could see it being
something that I get into watching more when I'm done playing baseball. Would you lean anyway with the team in Canada? Oh, I gotta stick with my Canucks, you know, Vancouver hometown team. I'll be a Canucks fan forever. See, this is what I wanted. I wanted that Canadian accent to come out. Can you just say organization once organization. Thanks a lot for the time, James. Great to watch you pitch this year and continued health the rest of the way. Absolutely, thank you very much.