WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL A - NETHERLANDS VS PANAMA

March 9, 2023

Xander Bogaerts

Jurickson Profar

Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium

Team Netherlands

Postgame Press Conference

Netherlands 3, Panama 1

Q. Xander, you were kind of all over the place today, baserunning, defense, offense. How fun is it kind of playing in this great infield with these great players and also in this lineup of a lot of Big Leaguers, former Big Leaguers?

XANDER BOGAERTS: It is fun. I'm very exhausted right now, very tired. The sun is hot. But the adrenaline, it keeps you going, especially since both games were end-of-game. Like I said, we've played against guys from Curaçao, guys from the Netherlands since we were little. Now we play together with them; some of them we still play against. It's really very comfortable playing with each other and knowing that we have a lot of studs on our team for sure.

Q. For both you guys, do you guys have family here this week? Do you have any watch parties in Aruba or Curaçao that are happening with family or friends watching you guys? I know it's later in the night, but any of that going on?

JURICKSON PROFAR: Yes, we have family here and almost the whole island, too, is supporting us, Curaçao, Aruba, everywhere, Netherlands.

Q. (No translation.)

XANDER BOGAERTS: The guy that pitched today I'm pretty familiar with him. I played against him in the Big Leagues for a little bit. Sometimes some teams have guys you don't face often, so you don't have much information until the game starts. Some of it is just baseball. You cannot be great every day, although we would want that, but I've learned at a young age that you're not going to have your best game every day. Try to get some good night's sleep regardless and come in the next day and make it your day.

It's been really fun being able to get these two wins. Obviously we know there's a lot of talk about our pitching and stuff like that, but from the Serie del Caribe, they were pitching pretty dominant. It's just our offense that hasn't been clicking so far, and we know we have a great offense, and today a couple guys got some hits, so hopefully that carries over to the next couple games.

JURICKSON PROFAR: For me, just I didn't have a hit neither in the first game, so today just tried to slow myself down and slow the game down a little bit at the plate, and I put a good swing.