|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL BMarch 8, 2017Carlos MartiTokyo, Japan Cuba 6, China 0 Q. Yesterday, you lost a tough game against Team Japan, and the very next day, you had a day game. The commission seems like it might be difficult for you, but what's the most key that you won this afternoon's game? CARLOS MARTI: Good afternoon, everybody. Yes, I think that last night's game against Team Japan, that was the most tough opponent. Today's opponent is not as good as Japan, so the quality of the players is the difference than yesterday. Today's game was not as hard as the last one. Q. The starting pitcher, he didn't give up any base hits until the fifth or sixth inning. How would you evaluate your starting pitcher, Baños? CARLOS MARTI: Yes, he is one of the best pitchers among our roster, pitching roster. He prepared well. He pitched well, like you said. He did a good job. I was expecting him to throw till the fifth inning, and he did just exactly what we were expecting for him. Q. Let's talk about the offense. The first couple innings, you sent a couple runners on base, but they didn't get a run. Before the bottom of the fourth inning, you had a little meeting in front of the dugout. What tactics did you tell for your players? CARLOS MARTI: Yes, well, we are -- the last game pitching against Japan, the fastball is faster, but China's pitchers' velocity is not the same as last night. So in order to hit the ball well, I told them to adjust the timing. That's about it. Q. Right after the small meeting at the bottom of the fourth, you got an RBI base hit, and you scored six. How do you evaluate your offense? CARLOS MARTI: Yes, talking about the offense, our hitters swung the bat well. This is what I was expecting for them. We have only two power hitters, the second hitter and the fourth hitter. Other than that, they have a bunch of speed. We have great speed. So we are just about to take off. It's all ready for take off. We have a game the day after tomorrow against team Australia, if we can win against Australia, we can most likely go forward to the second round. So what we are going to do is just to prepare for the next game after tomorrow. Q. You mentioned that Blanco is the pitcher for the game against team Australia. How much pitches do you think he can throw, and who do you think is going to be the second and the third pitchers? Also, team Australia has speed, a bunch of stolen bases. How do you prepare for that? CARLOS MARTI: Yes, talking about Blanco, on our rosters, all the pitchers are ready to pitch. So after Blanco starts the game, all the pitchers on the roster are going to be ready for the game. Q. My second question is Team Australia has a lot of stolen bases, so how do you prepare for that? CARLOS MARTI: Yes, I know that, and on that point, I am a little bit worried about. It's all up to the pitchers whether they can get a steal and we can catch the runners. Whenever the runners on base have speed, all we can do is try to be as quick as we can, but it's not an easy task to prevent the baserunners from stealing bases. A lot of the Asian teams have speed, so we have to prepare for that, especially for the pitchers. Q. Your second pitcher, Garcia, he is also available to start. What is the reason why you put Garcia as the second pitcher, not as a starter? CARLOS MARTI: The reason why is our -- it's part of our tactics. Baños started today -- well, Baños threw a lot of pitches, so I don't have to let Garcia pitch that much pitching count. Q. You have a game against Australia, and throughout your 40 years of managerial experience, the game against Australia is going to be the most important moment, important game. How do you prepare for that? CARLOS MARTI: It is going to be a very important game, but if we lost, it's not the end of the world. We are doing a bunch of things to prepare for the tournament, so all we can say is let's have fun. The game against Australia is just one game, so try to be natural. Try not to be special. I don't have to be special -- I want to be natural. So no matter if we lost, it's not the end of the world. Q. Well, it was a difficult question, anyway. We played a couple games here in this tournament, so you just said that this is going to be the most important game? CARLOS MARTI: Yes, that's the fact, but I don't want my team to feel a lot of pressure. So I just say that this is another game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|