Padgham's progress: Abbotsford pitcher gets it done for Team Canada

The progress of Raine Padgham's baseball career has always pointed toward the day when she would join the elite players of the world.

Still, being picked as the starting pitcher for Team Canada's opening game against Mexico at the Women's Baseball World Cup qualifier was a nod to the Abbotsford native's determined evolution from hard-throwing girl with the trademark pink hair to the even harder-throwing young woman out to prove her potential.

"It was a little nerve-wracking only because it's such a big tournament, and I'm only 18," she said, speaking from the tournament site of Thunder Bay. "I'm pretty new to the team, so just getting that start, it makes me feel a lot more confident in my own ability."

Padgham earned the win in the 9-1 final, allowing just one run on one hit over four innings. It was exactly the performance Team Canada manager Anthony Pluta expected from her.

"She came out and did exactly what we hoped she would do. She threw the ball well. She threw hard. She threw strikes. She located her off-speed pitches," he said. "It was a phenomenal performance." 

WATCH | Raine Padghem felt nervous in her tournament debut:

The great expectations that often fall on a precocious talent can be the undoing of a young athlete. But Padgham has navigated the pressure and stayed the course.

At 13 years old, she was the youngest ever invited to join the Canadian women's prospects team. At 15, her fastball was clocked at 83 miles per hour (134 km/h) during a Baseball B.C. high-performance camp.

 As coach Logan Wedgewood described at the time: "For most 15-year-olds — regardless of gender — throwing 83 is really fast."

The pandemic wreaked havoc on the international baseball calendar, so much so that the tournament in