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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: 2ND ROUND POOL F

March 18, 2017

Tony Pena

San Diego, California

USA - 6, Dominican Republic - 3

Q. Good evening, Tony, I'm not going to talk to you about the situation with the game. Obviously, that just passed. But if you would have had the opportunity to do something different in this game, would you have done something different, or do you feel like you would?
TONY PENA: I actually don't feel like I did anything wrong. This was a very difficult game. You have 11 players on base, and we could only do the best we could. They tried. I feel very proud of each of them. I will not point to any one of them. It's simply that US Team did the right pitches in that particular timeframe, and that's what cost us the game.

Q. We're clear in baseball you win and you lose and that's part of the game. But it is early enough to talk about specifics. Would you be in a position to lead the Dominican Republic in the future?
TONY PENA: If God allows me and I am asked, I will never say no. Obviously patriotism is very big for me, and I think that includes the guys that we're playing, and I'm very grateful for each and every one of them.

Q. Did you have pressure regarding expectations?
TONY PENA: No, I didn't have any pressure regarding expectations. I think that the guys really wanted to do a lot more. They played the game that they needed to play, and I think they were very anxious, but I don't think there was pressure.

Q. So the Dominican Republic had a very difficult time to actually bring runs in. Did you think about maybe do a change in the lineup to begin to have the game in play?
TONY PENA: Specifically for the Dominican Republic, we had a very balanced team. Bautista wasn't available. I think that the game, we did not lose the game because of the lineup because we didn't bat at that particular moment that we had the opportunity. You use all the players. And when you see the numbers for each player, and people ask me, why didn't I do this game or why didn't I use this strategy, no. I actually had a balanced group. We had a good lefty that was pitching, and he was very good. We did this twice, and we didn't make it.

Q. You had second and third and nobody out in both the second and the fifth. Is that the most frustrating part of the game for you?
TONY PENA: It is the ballgame. This got pushed to the other side, and whenever you don't execute, you pay for it. And I think we had the chance to open the game in the fourth inning, and we had a chance, too, in the fifth inning. I thought it was second and third with no outs, and we didn't get any runs in. At the end of the game, those little things paid off.

Q. At the eighth inning, you couldn't decide to change your pitchers. Why didn't you? Did you consider waiting till the 9th inning or tenth inning or 11th inning, so you couldn't change your young pitchers?
TONY PENA: My time was to try to give time for Familia to warm up. I wanted to stop the game there. But they made two quick outs, and there's no way that Familia would have been ready, and Molina (phonetic) was ready, and then I decided to go with Molina. I was not going to jeopardize anybody's career. I don't want Familia to rush. I said, okay, we've got this under control.

Q. Which play impressed you more? The Stanton homer or Adam Jones' catch?
TONY PENA: I think Adam Jones. Adam Jones' catch, I think was a big difference because with those back-to-back, if he didn't catch the ball, it would have been a back-to-back home run, and it would have been a tie game. I think that was the more impressive one.

Q. You mentioned Adam Jones' catch, but Stanton's home run, obviously you guys are up 2-0, and it's now 4-2, and it's a really powerful home run. Did that change the energy at all in your guys' dugout that home run?
TONY PENA: I don't know if it changed because I didn't see any attitude in our dugout. They scored two runs, and we just kept talking. We had time to come back. We had a powerful lineup. That's one of the reasons why we tried to stop the game. I tried to stop the game there and tried to use everybody. I tried to get out of the fifth because after the fifth I know the type of pitches that were coming into the ballgame, you know, and we did that. We tried to stop it, but they came back and scored two or more runs in the eighth. At that time then, that would have been different.

THE MODERATOR: Well, Tony you were the champions of 2013. You represented the sport extremely well once again. Thank you very much for all your time and professionalism.

TONY PENA: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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