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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 2ND ROUND POOL EMarch 11, 2017Carlos MartiYurisbel GracialFrank MorejonTokyo, Japan Q. You had a general practice today. What do you think of your team at the moment? CARLOS MARTI: The result from yesterday's game gave us a ticket to the next round. We are very satisfied by that. Yesterday's game was a very good game. And playing against Australia they were such a high-level team. They have some players who play very high-level baseball. And concerning our team, we have to feel the responsibility and the pressure concerning this game, and as a result, we conquered a very good result. Q. Tomorrow you play against Israel. And they were supposed to be the underdogs, but they have three wins in a row. What do you think of the team? CARLOS MARTI: I don't have much information about Israel. This time we're going to play against Israel, but we heard some stories about people who know well the Israel team, and they say that they have lots of players who are already playing in the Major League. So our job for the game tomorrow is going to be a very tough job. We have to be prepared for that. Q. So preparing yourself for a very tough game, who's going to be the key player for this game? CARLOS MARTI: Everybody is a key player, all of them. It doesn't matter which one. All of them are important. And among them I cannot say at this moment who is going to be very important tomorrow, but tomorrow we consider everybody that is on the bench to do their best to contribute to the result of the game. So we have to consider the team overall and consider that each member, each and every member is very important. Q. Your motivation for the game tomorrow, what kind of game do you expect to conduct? CARLOS MARTI: It's a very important game, as always, and the second round it's the very first game. So we prepare ourselves, our conditioning and we just intend to do the things that we are supposed to do. And it's important to win each game to be able to go to the next stage. Q. Thank you very much. I would like to ask some questions to the players. Tomorrow you start the second round. How do you feel at this moment about your conditioning? FRANK MOREJON: Tomorrow starts the very second round, and it's important start, and for this game everybody in the team is considering this game to be the key game of the second round. And at this moment four teams are participating in the second round, and everybody is representing their own country, so everybody is very proud to be here. And lastly, it doesn't matter what kind of situation it presents, you have to do your best, especially if you talk about Team Cuba, we are putting 100 percent of whatever we can in order to win that game. YURISBEL GRACIAL: Good afternoon, everybody. As Morejon just said, that Team Cuba is very motivated. We got the ticket to go to the second round. That was one of our aims, and tomorrow playing against Israel, this game I hope to do a very good game. And it's very important to win the first game of the round so you can go to the next game with more tranquility, so it's a very important game tomorrow. Q. How do you see the Israel team? FRANK MOREJON: If you analyze the results of the Israel team, you'll see that they're a very good team and they did a very good job. It's never easy^ playing against them. It's very difficult to come without wins in the first round. First of all, it's this, Israel could do this in their group. So this is the fact. Q. And what does that mean? FRANK MOREJON: It means that Japan also won all of the games in the first round, so that means that very good athletes are in that team. And they play baseball a very good quality, high level. YURISBEL GRACIAL: The group that Israel was in, you can see the group and you can see the results. You'll see that Israel is a very strong team. Not talking only about the pitchers but also the attacking players. But we are going to be in the same pitch as this second round, same pitch as Israel, and each team will do their best to win, so may the best team win. Whatever happened in the past has no influence from now on. We have to play the game tomorrow as if it was the first and the last game. And our objective from now on, we will aim to -- we consider that all of the teams in the group are starting from the same base. Okay. So everybody has a chance to win. Q. Your motivation for the second round, please? FRANK MOREJON: As I just said right now, the team is 100 percent prepared. We have our style, our strategy, our consistency. We have to be able to put everything in the pitch, put that out. And in the second round it's very important to be aware that every team has the same percentages of chances. YURISBEL GRACIAL: Particularly, I think considering the game against Australia, if you see the result, you can see that that game gave Team Cuba a very strong motivation, and we could learn from that game that nothing is impossible. So if you do a good game, if you defend well, it's possible to win any game. It doesn't matter who you're playing against. So it's important to keep this in mind to play against Israel, but that's going to be the very first game and the most important one. So it's important not to forget that. Q. A question for the manager, please. To win the game yesterday when you were defending the Despaigne seemed to have a pain in his neck. What kind of accident was that? What happened at that moment, and how is he at this moment? CARLOS MARTI: He felt uncomfortable in his left neck. So after the game, the doctor took a look at him, and there is nothing to worry. It seems that a movement that he made, maybe this movement he put too much strength in it and he felt muscle pain. But it's nothing to be worried about. Despaigne is also saying that he's feeling nothing right now and he can play tomorrow. Q. Tomorrow the pitcher who came to the mound when the bases were full did a wonderful job, and do you have any special kind of mental training for your players to work under pressure? CARLOS MARTI: It's a normal situation. Of course, yesterday the game was a very nervous game. But always we have a psychologist, a therapist who takes care of always thinking about the future, the psychological side, and the coaches, too, they take lots of care for the players to be in a good mental condition. Our coaches always have information about what kind of batting they will have to face and what kind of situation might be presented, so whenever they get to face a very difficult situation, our pitchers can deal with it. And when you think that they have those kind of situations and we have to get those guys off the bases, we can do that. Q. You dived into the dugout. Do you have any pain? FRANK MOREJON: No. Of course, I hit my belly at that moment, but nothing that will affect tomorrow's game. Q. You have been to Team Cuba for a long, long time. Maybe you are one of the most important players inside the Cuba team. And I thought Cuba this year would have strong batting, but at this moment I consider Team Cuba to be a team that defends very well. What do you think of team Cuba this year compared to the last time? FRANK MOREJON: Basically Cuba, if you think on the world level, Cuba is a team that can play both defense and offense very well. Our batters are always very strong. And the pitchers also can throw very fast balls, and they can defend very well. So it's a team always with perfection. But if you see Team Cuba now, of course, I belong to this team, but I think the conditions are the same and the characteristics are the same. I don't think there's much difference now from the past. If you see international baseball nowadays, the level of the baseball worldwide has been raised overall, if you compare with the past. And besides Despaigne we have very good hitters, but not very strong hitters like Despaigne. And they don't have the strength that ^ Despaigne has, but they can hit very good balls. They can hit very well. For example, if you compare the game against Japan, they hit 11 times and against China it was the same number. Against China on the 14th and the game against Australia, I forgot which day was that. But anyway, what I want to say is that inside this group we have produced very good results statistically concerning attack. Q. You stole bases in the first game. What do you think you can do in this second round of the WBC, and do you have any strategy to face the Israel batters? YURISBEL GRACIAL: Of course, our characteristics, one of our characteristics is the speed that we have, so facing other teams, if you talk about Cuba, the strong point is the speed. So we have to use our speed to play against other teams. It doesn't matter who you're playing against, you have to use your speed. That's the strong point and that's what we can do. If we can't steal bases, we cannot do it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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