He once struck out Giancarlo Stanton. Now he engineers cars for Ford

He shared a field with Hideki Matsui -- in Oakland! -- played alongside Joey Votto on Team Canada, stared down José Bautista and Josh Hamilton in their primes and struck out Giancarlo Stanton.

There probably aren't a whole lot of car engineers out there who can say anything like that.

But Trystan Magnuson can.

Magnuson, a reliever who played one season in the Major Leagues with the A's in 2011 and also pitched for Canada in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, has taken far from the usual post-career path for a baseball player.

He went from pitching in the big leagues to supervising vehicle integration at Ford, which just before Opening Day became the official automotive partner of Major League Baseball, uniting the two American icons.

So how does a Major League pitcher become an auto engineer? MLB.com recently caught up with Magnuson to find out.

"Engineering is engineering, right?" Magnuson said. "In baseball, it's how the body is engineered to apply force to either the ball as a pitcher or to the bat as a hitter. Or how the ball is flying through the air -- that's aerodynamics, that's physics, that's engineering."

Magnuson was actually planning to be an engineer before he ever dreamed about a career in baseball. Born in Vancouver and raised in Winnipeg, Magnuson went to college at Louisville for mechanical engineering, not pitching. But when the Louisville baseball team saw a 6-foot-7 righty with promising stuff, they brought Magnuson on. Coach Roger Williams helped Magnuson, well, engineer some better pitching mechanics and realize his potential.

By the time the 2007 MLB Draft rolled around, Magnuson was a first-round pick, selected 56th overall by the Blue Jays. But Magnuson never got to play for his home country's team. He was traded to the A's as a Minor Leaguer in 2010 in a deal for Rajai Davis.

Magnuson made his MLB debut at Oakland Coliseum on May 17, 2011, finishing off a blowout win against the Angels by striking out Hank Conger for his first career K. He went on to pitch in nine games for the A's in his only Major League season.

But there are some fun facts about Magnuson's cup of coffee in the big leagues.

His teammates on the 2011 A's, for example, included the great Japanese slugger Matsui -- did you even remember that Godzilla played for the A's? -- and current Angels manager Kurt Suzuki, who was the catcher Magnuson threw to the most.

"I felt really accepted and appreciated when I was with Oakland," Magnuson said. "And that was really cool, because I never thought that baseball would work out, and then here I am amongst these stars. It was amazing. It ended too early."

Magnuson's nine MLB games included facing the vaunted Rangers lineup in the middle of its back-to-back American League pennant runs. Magnuson gave up a couple of runs in that outing, but he also managed to retire the reigning MVP Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young, and he struck out Mike Napoli.

"I remember facing the Rangers lineup, and it was like there was never a break," Magnuson said. "It was just All-Star after All-Star after All-Star. It was pretty intense. I really enjoyed pitching against people that I had seen on TV before and that I had studied extensively, because it felt like I had already pitched against them."

But the best at-bat Magnuson ever pitched? That came against a young Stanton, who was just 21 and in his second big league season with the Marlins in 2011. Magnuson and Stanton had a nine-pitch battle, which Magnuson finished off by blowing Stanton away with a 96.1 mph fastball.

It was the fastest pitch of Magnuson's MLB career.

"You take note of certain hitters that you appreciate their talent and their skill," Magnuson said. "I remember throwing him a lot of high fastballs. And I'm very thankful that I was able to get that last one by him to strike him out."

And although Magnuson never got to pitch for the Blue Jays in the Majors, Magnuson did get to pitch against them, when Toronto was led by Joey Bats during his run of back-to back MLB home run crowns.

"When I was growing up in Winnipeg, during the '92 and '93 World Series runs, they were the team of the country," Magnuson said of the Blue Jays. "I was really excited getting drafted by them, and I wish I had been able to play for them in the big leagues. But it was great getting to pitch against them."

Plus, the Blue Jays, who re-acquired Magnuson after his stint with the A's (he just didn't get back to the Majors), helped Magnuson pay for his master's in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon, which put him on the path toward his post-playing career at Ford.

And whatever Magnuson might've missed out on in Toronto, he made up for by representing Canada at the 2013 World Baseball Classic, where he pitched for a team led by Votto and Justin Morneau.

"It was an honor," Magnuson said. "I wish that the World Baseball Classic had been longer for us on Team Canada, so that I could have spent more time with all those guys."

Magnuson made one appearance in the WBC and tossed two scoreless innings against Mexico in a Canadian victory at Chase Field in Arizona, including inducing an inning-ending groundout from Adrián González in the seventh.

If you watched any of Mexico's games at this year's WBC -- especially the USA-Mexico showdown -- you know how insane those atmospheres can get. Heck, in Magnuson's Canada-Mexico game, the two countries got into a benches-clearing brawl in the ninth inning.

"Every game has such high stakes," Magnuson said. "And you also have this national pride and intensity that is just different."

The World Baseball Classic was, in a way, Magnuson's last hurrah as a pro pitcher. But over a decade later, in his second career engineering cars, he's reconnecting with the game -- as Team Canada is making deep World Baseball Classic runs and his A's sit in first place in the AL West.

You could even say that Magnuson -- considering his data-driven specialty -- was a big leaguer too early. Fifteen years after he last pitched in the Majors, technology has revolutionized the way pro baseball is played. Statcast tracks everything that happens on the field. Teams have access to a treasure trove of data they never had before. There have been incredible innovations in pitch design and player development. Baseball is moving at lightspeed, and Magnuson would've fit right in in the modern game.

"I just wish I had that data when I was pitching," Magnuson said. "Because I would have been able to experiment much more. To learn. To say, 'Well, what if I do this? What if I do that? What's the result?' [Thinking about it] now that I'm an engineer here at Ford, I would love to go back and really dig in."