SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Michael Soroka sat up on the dais as Josh Naylor and Tyler O’Neill heaped praise upon him and felt compelled to interject once they were done.

“They forgot to mention that they both have pumps off me,” the Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander said with a grin. “So that’s worth noting, too.”

Technically, Naylor’s actually gotten him twice, part of a gaudy 6-for-9 career mark against Soroka, while O’Neill’s drive came in the single time the two have faced off.

Duly noted, as requested.

Nonetheless, the compliments from his national squad teammates still stand, and their insights explain why he’s getting the ball in Canada’s opener at the World Baseball Classic on Saturday versus Colombia (11 a.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+).

“I played with Mike growing up, seen him grow as a player, also as a human, too, then seen him evolve into the all-star-calibre pitcher he is,” said Naylor. “He’s relentless on the mound. He has a never-give-up attitude. He has a specific plan for each hitter he’s going to face and he attacks that game plan through and through. He doesn’t cave in.”

Added O’Neill: “He’s a bulldog on the mound. He’s got really good stuff, trusts his stuff in the zone, attacks hitters, trusts his game plan. It’s always a pleasure to play against Canadians like that, and this is the first time that we’re playing together. Getting to know Mike as a teammate and more as a friend lately has been a great experience.”

The experience of playing in the WBC has been a long time coming for Soroka, who was just emerging from A-ball during the 2017 edition, while in 2023, he was working his way back from the two Achilles’ injuries suffered in 2020 and ’21 that stunted his career.

This time around, there were no complications, not even from the Diamondbacks, who in the winter signed the free agent to a $7.5-million, one-year deal.

“It’s the first time in my career where everything has kind of lined up and I’ve been able to put on this jersey again,” said Soroka, who last played for a national team in 2015 with the juniors. “It’s always an honour and something that you look at when you’re a kid as an incredible opportunity.”

Such opportunities are especially meaningful to Soroka after all he’s been through since his breakout 2019 season, when he logged 174.2 innings over 29 starts while posting a 2.68 ERA with Atlanta. The performance earned him an all-star nod at the age of 21.

But he blew out his Achilles tendon during his third start of 2020 and didn’t pitch in the majors again until an up-and-down 2023. Atlanta traded him to the Chicago White Sox after the season, he logged 79.2 innings with them, mostly out of the bullpen, and signed with the Washington Nationals last year as a starter, delivering 81.1 innings over 16 outings before finishing the season with the Cubs after a deadline deal, mostly as a reliever.

The year-to-year progress was substantial as Soroka said he spent last year cleaning up a delivery that “took a couple steps backwards in ’24, for a couple of different reasons.” A focus on adjusting his site points helped improve his command, which is vital “because at the end of the day, we see stuff every day in baseball from pitchers that rivals as good as ever, but it is about commanding it within the strike zone.”

He also spent this past off-season refining his repertoire, continuing the work he started while with the Cubs. Soroka basically used two pitches last year, his fastball and his curveball, which, analytically, were his best offerings but made him more predictable during his third and fourth times through a lineup, eating away at his efficiency.

Tyler Zombro, Chicago’s vice president of pitching, “brought things forward to me pretty immediately that, hey, you could throw a sweeper and a cutter and a slider and not really do anything different,” and Soroka began to experiment with the pitches, which he didn’t have a chance to deploy in games once he ended up in the bullpen.

Soroka was a good candidate to add the three pitches because he “supinates through release and is able to make the ball move left quite easily,” an element the Cubs helped him identify.

“They basically said, if you can vary the shape on a cutter or a sweeper to protect your four-seam and (on a slider for) your curveball, you’re going to have a lot more success deeper in games, deeper in at-bats when you can give a hitter different looks,” he explained. “The way baseball is going with things like Trajekt and how hitters are able to basically practice the pitches that they think they’re going to see, if they know they’re going to see one of those two, they only have to eliminate one, right? Eventually, they’re going to get it.”

Soroka grew more comfortable with his expanded repertoire over the winter and “I think it’s going to be a lot more fun” working with a bigger mix.

“I feel like more of a complete pitcher,” he said. “If you look around baseball, we get someone like Max Fried, who’s constantly adding. I got to see him add a pitch pretty well every spring training for about four years in a row and turn himself into the stud that he is today, and he posts. You have things to turn to when one’s not working. These last couple of years have been a lot of learning and just trial and error and I think we’re now getting to a point where it’s all kind of falling into place.”

All of which has him back in a Canada jersey, ready to face a Colombian team that starts Julio Teheran some 14 hours after an opening 5-0 loss to Puerto Rico ended.

Colombia manager Jose Mosquera said the day after night factored into their planning and “that’s why we scheduled some rest, going back to the hotel. Really, the mindset is competing in every aspect. I know it’s tough, but this is something that we prepared for.”

Seth Lugo held them to three hits and two walks over four shutout innings with a similar pitch mix to the one Soroka is aiming to utilize this year.

The Canadians would gladly take a result along those lines, too.

“I love facing him because, as a hitter, you like facing incredible arms,” said Naylor. “It challenges to be super-disciplined, be ready to attack maybe something you’re not comfortable attacking to scare him away from it the next time. So I grow as a player facing Mike.”