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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL C

March 9, 2017

Ernie Whitt

Miami, Florida

ERNIE WHITT: I think the guys covered it pretty well. That's a tough act to follow right there.

Q. How has Ryan Dempster looked to you after not pitching for a while? Just in his preparation for this event how has he looked out there going into tonight's game?
ERNIE WHITT: I haven't seen him. Truthfully, I have not seen him throw.

Q. I haven't seen the lineup yet, can you tell us, did Eric Wood actually make it and how are you lining up?
ERNIE WHITT: He snuck into the lineup. It was a tough decision. We have got -- you know what? This team's great. It really is. They come together all the time and he just fit in so well along with Freddie and some of the new guys here, our veteran guys really take him in under their wings. And Woody came on to the radar for me last year when I saw him in Altoona and he played extremely well. And so, yeah, he's playing third base tonight.

Q. Curious just about your reaction when you first learned about Freddie's availability and interest in playing for Canada, and then when he did get here how did y'all make him feel at home?
ERNIE WHITT: We have a way of making people feel at home here in the Canadian Baseball locker room. He fit right in. As he said, he took a lot of abuse the first day, and usually sometimes that just eases the tension right away. When I first heard that he was interested, but then I had four first basemen with him being interested, it was like, okay, can any of them play other positions? Because you would like to see all four of them in the lineup, that being Morneau, Votto, Naylor and Freddie.

But of course, Atlanta wouldn't let him play any other position and then and Votto dropped out. So we have got two out of the three in the lineup, and I'm pleased with that and I've got a pretty good left-handed hitter coming off the bench in Naylor, a good young power hitter off the bench.

Q. As a manager, what is it like to start a pitcher that you haven't seen throw in, I guess, two or three years?
ERNIE WHITT: We'll find out after the first inning, I hope. Hopefully it's good. Again, you go on his word, what he's doing, people that have seen him throw. He's a veteran guy and as the guy said up here, he's pitched in a lot of big ballgames. He knows how to change speeds. Hopefully he'll miss a lot of barrels and he'll be his veteran self out there.

Again, you can't look at him and say well, he's going to be in his peak, we don't know. We just don't know. He hasn't pitched in a while and his adrenaline may be flowing, but I think hopefully he'll be able to keep that in check.

Q. Did you happen to see the video of Theo Epstein hitting against him?
ERNIE WHITT: Someone made a comment about it, I did not see it, but, yeah, someone said he did. I hope Theo didn't take him deep.

Q. It looked like a soft fly to right?
ERNIE WHITT: Well, we'll take those.

Q. I wanted to touch on, you were mentioning the fact that Votto was not allowed to play any other base and that precisely how do you see it, because there's been a good amount of players that have met that challenge and how do you feel on that, because that definitely complicates things for what the teams can actually have available versus what they would want.
ERNIE WHITT: Well, number one, I think you have to respect the organization and what they want their players to do, because they have a vested interest in them. So, we would never ask a player to play a position that he's not comfortable in. I mean, Joey, if he wanted to play, he would have been on a team, and we would have welcomed him full force. He chose not to and I respect that decision.

The problem that we have on our Canadian team is we just don't have the depth that a lot of other countries have. So, when we lose some of our Major League players we have to extend ourselves to get some players to come and participate and compete against some Major League players, like the Dominican Republic tonight.

Q. What can you tell us about Ryan Dempster starting tonight and taking into account his preparation, taking into account he hasn't pitched in a while and two, what's your take on Nick Pivetta starting the second game?
ERNIE WHITT: Well, the first game again, like I said, I have not seen Ryan throw in competition in a long time. Again, he is the type of pitcher that hopefully he can change speeds and take the hitter's timing off a little bit. I don't have to worry, I think he's a veteran enough player, he's been through the trenches where he can make some adjustments.

As far as Pivetta for tomorrow night against Colombia, he's got a very good arm, he pitched last year in Double-A with the Phillies, a little bit in Triple-A, good fastball, good curveball. We just want him to throw strikes and he's a pretty good up-and-coming pitcher with a good live arm.

Q. What part did you ask Russell Martin to play in prepping Kottaras and Ryan for today's game?
ERNIE WHITT: Well, again, we're having meetings. He will sit in with our meetings with the pitchers and catchers, go over their lineup and hopefully we're able to pitch to some of their weakness. They don't have a lot of weakness, so again we're just hoping that we can execute some pitches, and if they do hit it, they hit it at us and we can make the plays.

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