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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 1ST ROUND POOL C

March 11, 2017

Jim Leyland

Miami, Florida

Dominican Republic - 7, USA - 5

Q. It's tough to see Andrew struggle like that. Can you talk a little bit about what happened in the game.
JIM LEYLAND: Well, I think that we all know about the lineup that they have. And really the tough one was when he hit Bautista with a breaking ball. Hit him on the foot, and that was a big thing. And then they got a seeing-eye ground ball that could have been hit at somebody for a double play. It was just hit in a perfect spot. You give that kind of lineup some hope and opportunity, they got a chance to hurt you.

Q. At what point can you let go of this game and start thinking about tomorrow? Because then you have another big game in just a few hours.
JIM LEYLAND: Well, I've always, like I told the guys, I don't want anybody down, we battled our tail off tonight, and we'll battle our tail off tomorrow. Good teams go about their business. We lost a tough game, you go about your business. I don't expect anybody with their head down. That's what bad teams do. Good teams know they're going to win a game tomorrow, hopefully, and they go about their business.

So we got to come out and win a game tomorrow. We know that, they know that. But I don't want anybody sitting around feeling bad about it. It was a tough game, we had a shot. What we don't want to lose sight of how terrific Stroman was. He was absolutely terrific. We just quite didn't close it out. But we'll be ready to play tomorrow. See what happens.

Q. You've been in a lot of playoff games and World Series, where does this atmosphere rank as just as far as the whole environment of the evening?
JIM LEYLAND: Well, this a tough one. Like you say, it's different venue, and it's a tough loss but you got to move on from them, because as in the World Series. If you lose a game, you still have games left. We got to go out and win a game tomorrow.

So, is it a tough loss? Absolutely. One we felt like we had pretty much control of, I thought we did a good job all night long, and you got to remember Roark coming in piggybacking, that's a little tough. He was probably a little anxious, spiking his breaking ball a little bit too much. But he got out of it.

We had our shot. We got a two-run lead in the 8th, had Andrew Miller coming in. The hit batter to lead off of the inning was probably the killer.

Q. You touched on it earlier, with Stroman just kind of setting the tone. How impressive was what he did to hold them down, especially with what happened afterwards, did that make it even more impressive what he was able to do?
JIM LEYLAND: Well, I don't know that I've ever seen anybody more determined than he was tonight, Stroman. I mean, he wanted it. He wanted to get it and he did. He did an absolutely unbelievable job. Had a really good sinker. He could get a ground ball at any time and got the ground-ball double play with Machado, and he had a really good sinker.

So he was absolutely phenomenal. Like I say, we got to pretty much where we wanted to be. We originally thought we would try to have the lead and bring Andrew in the 9th, but when we had the two-run lead in the 8th, we said we were going to go for it. Got him up, told him he was in the game, and that's pretty much as simple as it is.

But no regrets. We did what we felt we had a shot to do, and it didn't work.

Q. I know you've been in a lot of games in your life, have you been in many crowds as loud as this one was tonight?
JIM LEYLAND: Yeah, I always respond to that the same way. You know it's there, you know that noise is there, and you know there's a whole lot of people, but when you're managing and concentrating, you don't really hear it as much as everybody else. You're not really thinking about it. It's something you're not tuned into, really, because you're concentrating on what you're doing and the moves you got to make.

So, it was an exciting crowd for both teams, a little more for them, I guess, but that's okay. It was a good ballgame, one that we felt we had in hand and probably let it get away, but that's okay.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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