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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL A

March 6, 2017

Jerry Weinstein

Seoul, Korea

ISRAEL 2
KOREA 1

Q. I'm sure leaving I think 11 men on base through the first nine innings is not exactly how you guys drew it up with the win, can you talk a little about any frustrations that you felt and finally being able to get that run across, albeit with a fielder's choice, but finally getting that run home from third after so many other opportunities?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Well, No.1, I'm going to give him a base hit on that ball up the middle because we were delayed stealing. We beat the force. Anyway. Not frustrating. We played an outstanding team, good pitching, and as much as you'd like to be able to‑‑ seems like it's pretty simple to get guys in from third base, but in the major leagues, they get them in 60 percent of the time. It's not easy, because they are not about to let you do that. There's no freebies out there, and certainly the Korean pitchers were outstanding and they had a lot to do with it.
You can't‑‑ I don't get frustrated and I don't think the players get frustrated with stuff we really don't have control over. We just go out there and compete, and once we do that, we'll live with the results.

Q. Would you clarify what happened on the bunt play? Was that a suicide squeeze?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: No, a safety squeeze.

Q. You were trying to push it early‑‑ there was a lot of running you were trying to do. Is that that part of the strategy?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: We do what we think is right for the situation. The situation dictates what you're trying to do. We knew it would be a low‑run environment and we had to try and do some things aggressively. Some worked out, some didn't. The last play of the game, we go delay, steel, with one two count. And if we don't delay, Lavarnway is definitely forced at second base and we don't score the run.

Q. Could you talk a little about winning this game against the host nation, knowing you have Netherlands later on. What does this mean to the team?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: It means we have a win in the bank. That's all it means. Other than that, it means that we've got to get ready to play tomorrow, which will not be easy, especially with this late night and very adrenalized emotional ballgame.
But this is a mature group of guys and the young guys are becoming more mature as we go. We'll be ready to play tomorrow. We'll be as good as we can possibly be.

Q. What is your analysis of the Korean team?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: It was an outstanding game, two really good teams playing extremely well. Obviously the pitching dominated the night, you know, it's baseball. There's a lot of failure built into this game because of pitching dominating hitting. It's always been that way and always will be that way unless they move the mound back.

Q. Can you talk about the work that Jason Marquis and Zeid did tonight and keeping them under the 50‑pitch count so that they can return in round one?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Well, that was our strategy. That is what we were trying to do.
We were committed to Zeid pitching until we won or lost the game tonight, so it wasn't like we had a grand plan for Zeid, but we definitely had one for Marquis. They attacked the strike zone very aggressively and we were fortunate to keep both those guys in a position where they can pitch in a couple days against Netherlands.

Q. Compared to the starting pitcher, I think Jason Marquis has threw 45 pitches. So was that planned? And I think you excluded Ike, so was that because of the left‑handed pitcher?
JERRY WEINSTEIN: Okay. So two questions. The fact that Jason Marquis threw 45 pitches, was under the 50‑pitch threshold, that was by design. That answered the first question.
The second part is, we didn't play Ike Davis because they started a left‑hand pitcher; that's correct. That's what we did. But he was an impact in the tonight, big factor coming off the bench. We rely on our all player, whether they start the game or they finish the game, doesn't matter. Everybody wins or loses.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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