By IAN WILSON
Tristan Peters – an All-Star outfielder in the Western Canadian Baseball League with the Okotoks Dawgs – has made his Major League Baseball debut with the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Winkler, Manitoba native and Dawgs Academy trained baseball player was promoted to The Show by the Rays on Friday, Aug. 8th. He made his MLB debut against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park that day by playing centre field and batting fifth in the lineup.
“It’s surreal,” Peters told MLB.com before he took the field for the Rays.
“I’m just excited to get out there and help the team win a few ball games.”
Several of his family members from Manitoba – including his parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins – and friends made the trip to Seattle to watch Peters make his first at bat against starting pitcher Luis Castillo. The 25-year-old caught three fly balls and went 0-for-3 in his first game. He played all three games of the weekend series against the Mariners.
The Rays made room for Peters by placing outfielder Jonny DeLuca on the 10-day injured list.
“Give him a tonne of credit,” said Rays manager Kevin Cash on MLB.com.
“Over the years, he’s just made steady progress, and really has come into his own on both sides of the ball.”
Rays pitcher Joe Boyle played alongside Peters with the Triple-A Durham Bulls and described him as a great fit for the Rays.
“He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen,” Boyle said. “Give him a sec to get comfortable here and find his way, but I think he’s going to be good right off the bat.”
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Peters was recalled from Durham after batting .282 over 105 games this season. The 7th-round pick of the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2021 MLB Draft has 11 home runs, 11 stolen bases, 60 runs and 58 RBI in his 369 at bats with the Bulls in 2025. He has also been a human highlight reel in the minor leagues and is often seen making Superman-like dives for catches or scaling outfield walls to rob batters of home runs.
Peters discussed his outfield defense during an interview with Alberta Dugout Stories: The Podcast in November of 2024.
“I found that really focusing on the batter and expecting the ball to come to you is the most important part to get that first-step quickness. I think that really helped me … also not being afraid to take risks,” said Peters, who is now the fifth Manitoba-born player to suit up with an MLB team.
“I feel like I’m pretty good at determining whether I should risk it. It completely depends where the game is at, like what the score is at, how we’re looking, are the bats hot. If we’re way ahead then I don’t mind taking a risk, if we’re way down then I might take a risk to stop the bleeding, but if it’s a close game and there’s nobody covering me I’m going to play it safe unless I know I can catch it ninety percent of the time.”
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Peters, the 20th Canadian-born player in the majors in 2025, also talked about realizing his dream of competing against MLB talent at baseball’s highest level.
“You’re so close and sometimes it feels like you’re so far at the same time. You can definitely just smell it and you want it really bad,” he said.
“You’ve also got to stay where you are, otherwise you get too caught up in that and you lose sight of other things, and then your career just kind of goes down. You can’t focus on it too much, you’ve just got to stay focused on where you are, I think that’s the main thing.”
Peters was a superstar in the WCBL with the Dawgs in 2019. In 52 regular-season contests that summer, he hit .396 with 52 runs, 44 RBI, 18 doubles, 12 homers and 13 stolen bases. The batting champ’s 90 hits established a single-season record. Peters claimed WCBL Rookie of the Year honours for the standout campaign and followed that up by leading the Dawgs to a league championship and earning WCBL Playoff MVP accolades in the process. He was also named a First-Team All-Star by the league.
Jacob Melton, a teammate of Peters with the Dawgs that year, made his MLB debut with the Houston Astros earlier this year.
In total, six alumni of the Okotoks Dawgs have played in the big leagues, including Jim Henderson, Alejo Lopez, Andrew Kittredge and Kody Funderburk.
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