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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL D

March 10, 2017

Omar Vizquel

Zapopan, Jalisco, MÃ©xico

Puerto Rico - 11, Venezuela - 0

Q. Tonight your first game as manager, and the ending, does it change your plan?
OMAR VIZQUEL: Well, it was a good experience in my first game here. Obviously I didn't expect this result. I thought the game was going to be closer. We didn't hit. I think the hitters were very anxious. We had a lot of bad pitching, and Lugo had an awesome game, and all the pitchers, they did their part. We had a lot of high pitches. We knew that the ball was flying here, and if we had any errors, and that's what happened.

Perez is going to open tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to have to forget this game and try to win that game tomorrow.

Q. Tell us a little bit about Felix and his performance today.
OMAR VIZQUEL: Well, Felix started very well. He was very quiet on the mound. He threw very good pitches, but he started getting into trouble when he already had 29 pitches in inning, and then with two people on base, I'd rather not stretch him out from there, and I changed medicine. That inning was difficult for us, obviously for him. I didn't think he wanted to come out, but we have to respect the rules.

Q. Right now you started mentioning exciting hitters. What can you do so that the next game that anxiety is not there?
OMAR VIZQUEL: Well, we'll talk to them tomorrow about that anxiety. Obviously they wanted to hit. They were desperate. We were down three. We were swinging very early in the count, and we got together again on the fourth inning, fifth inning. We tried to calm them down, but it didn't work.

Tomorrow is a different day. We will try to rest a little bit more and see if things change.

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about the job Lugo did tonight and the struggles your offense had tonight? What happened?
OMAR VIZQUEL: Yeah, I was just telling everybody that we swung at a lot of balls out of the strike zone. There were a lot of pitches out of the strike zone, in and out, and I think it's weird, when you have anybody that can go through this lineup and only have one hit by the time he left the game, I was really surprised because this team can really hit. But tonight, they weren't hitting. Lugo was pretty good.

Q. Two things: Who pitches against MÃ©xico? And the other one, the players in the World Baseball Classic, they're in very good physical condition but not baseball condition. Can you talk about that?
OMAR VIZQUEL: Well, I think that we talked about that before. The guys are very enthused. They are prepared physically and mentally for this kind of competition. But each one of them was very capable to play ball. In other games we had, I didn't see any difficulty physically. It was simply that we swung at a lot of balls out of the zone. We didn't hit, and when you don't hit, you are not going to be able to win.

Q. About that discipline on your hitters, how do you explain the lack of accuracy?
OMAR VIZQUEL: We'll talk to them tomorrow about it. Obviously today we didn't have a good game, and we have to calm the hitters down a little bit, and the pitcher, have him throw a little bit better pitches and attack. I think today everybody was a little bit anxious and tired because of the trip yesterday. We got here very late, but they pitched really good. They did.

Q. Do you think the starter Felix HernÃ¡ndez was limited somewhat?
OMAR VIZQUEL: Well, yeah. He was throwing really good. Like I said before, his breaking balls were good. His fastballs were going good. But in that third inning, he threw too many pitches, and I didn't want him stretching too much longer. He was already in trouble, and I wanted to take care of him, looking at his restriction. But I'm sure that he didn't want to come out of the game. He's a competitor, and it's too bad that he had that bad third inning.

Q. Talk about the young batters on the Puerto Rican team that knocked you out.
OMAR VIZQUEL: They played really well. They chose their pitches well. They followed their plan. Everybody participated. Everybody collaborated, and that's what you want to see in a team, everybody contributing besides the four homers that they hit. That helped a lot.

Q. Talk about the game against Italy tomorrow knowing that they surprised MÃ©xico last night.
OMAR VIZQUEL: Well, we have a very hard game ahead of us. You know that you have it difficult when tomorrow is do or die. We have to do everything and win that game either way.

Q. What do you tell the players?
OMAR VIZQUEL: We try to calm them down. Tomorrow we have a new game; forget what happened today practically and come tomorrow better prepared to have a better game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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