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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 2ND ROUND POOL EMarch 11, 2017Jerry WeinsteinTokyo, Japan Q. Who is going to be your key player for the second round tournament? JERRY WEINSTEIN: You know, this is a team game. We rely on everybody. I can't isolate a person. We don't know who is going to be the key player, but this is a team game and we rely on everybody to make contributions. Team Japan has a 3-0 record. How do you feel about that? JERRY WEINSTEIN: Very impressed. Outstanding team. Well rounded. Good pitching. They play defense, run the bases extremely well. Good team speed. Be a very daunting task to compete with Japan. Q. You just mentioned baseball is a team game. Who is the most tough opponent on with Japanese roster? JERRY WEINSTEIN: Just specifically on the Japanese roster, is that the question? Well, whoever is at-bat or whoever is pitching, that's our -- that's the guy we have to compete with. We are not isolating any one player. This is a one-pitch at a time game. It's not about looking too far ahead. We just need to be as good as we can be on every pitch of the ballgame no matter who is pitching who are is hitting. Q. You have an opening game against Cuba tomorrow. What is the impression of Cuba? JERRY WEINSTEIN: Well, Cuba is another outstanding team. You know, our focus is always on our team. We pretty much play against the ball. It's not necessarily playing against Cuba or Japan or the Netherlands. We just need to do what we do well, and not try and do things that are outside of our capabilities. So our main focus is not so much on the opposition but more on our team and what we do and what we do well and what we can do. And then my job is to put players in a position to do the things that they can do and not ask them to do things that they can't do. Q. Did you have any roster changes for the second round? JERRY WEINSTEIN: We do. We added two pitchers. We added Brad Goldberg from the White Sox and we added Jared Radnich from the Pirates. They were both in big league spring training, and their organizations allowed them to join us. We eliminated one pitcher, Gabe Cramer (ph), who had a little arm soreness, and then Shlomo Lipetz, one of our pitchers. Q. Who is the probable starter for tomorrow? JERRY WEINSTEIN: Tomorrow Jason Marquis will be our starting pitcher. Q. You played Seoul in Pool A. You used many pitchers in one game; is this scenario the same game plan for second round, or you're going to have a different story because the starting pitcher can go up to 80 pitches? JERRY WEINSTEIN: Well, basically, we adjust our pitching based on the situation in the game. It's all situation for us. We just try and have the right guy out there, the right match up at the right time. We try and have our better guys in the highest-leveraged situations. You can lose a ballgame in the second or third inning just as easily as you can lose a ballgame, in my opinion, late in the game so. We just try and have the appropriate match up. We don't go -- we don't plan going in that we're going to use -- it's not designed that this guy is going to throw an inning or less or whatever, and the game tells us. Now, the last game in Pool A, we had designated that we were going to check which. Q. Your 3-0 record in round one what was in your mind, and what leads you to the record of 3-0? What's your team's strong point? JERRY WEINSTEIN: The reason we were 3-0 is we had timely hitting and we played defense and especially because we pitched extremely well. That's why we were successful, and that's what it will take to be successful coming up. I think the biggest thing for us is we have pitching and we have pitching depth. We don't have the one outstanding No. 1 stopper-type guy necessarily, but as a group, they complement one another and it makes it difficult on hitters because of the different looks. Q. You have long time experience as a college manager, and this is such a short-time tournament; it's a do-or-die tournament. Does that college experience give you some credit for you as the national team's manager? JERRY WEINSTEIN: Well, you know, I've had a lot of experience in college, like you said. But I've also had a lot of international experience in Pan Am Games and two Olympic teams and things like that and you're playing short series. I think in managing a tournament, where I'd say a double-elimination tournament or a short term, I think that from a managing standpoint, managing the pitching staff becomes more critical in the short term, and I think we saw that in the United States this year in the World Series, how pitching usage was a lot different than during the season where closers were coming in in the fifth or sixth inning, because every game is important. When you have a chance to win a game in a tournament like this, you win that game. Today or tomorrow, when we play, that's our most important game, because once you get that win, you put that win in the bank. Nobody can take that away from you, so you take care of today's game. Over a long series or a long season where you're playing 140 or 162 games, you need to be -- it needs to be -- you need to look farther up the tunnel because it is a long season, and you have to consider what effect going all out today has on your bullpen down the line so you don't burn up your bullpen and wear guys out and things like that. You have to look at the big picture here; the picture is very narrow. It's today's game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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