WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL B - CZECH REPUBLIC VS CHINA

March 10, 2023

Dean Treanor

Tokyo Dome

Team China

Postgame Press Conference

Czechia - 8, China - 5

Q. You are so close for the first win. What's in your mind? What is the impression? What's in your mind right now?

DEAN TREANOR: What's in my mind right now is I'm not sure I've been in a tougher loss than this one tonight, or this afternoon, whatever time it is. This is a tough one. You know the history of China in the WBC, and we put ourselves in a position to win this game today, and we just did not get it done. I feel bad for the players.

I mean, like I said yesterday, they, again today, played our asses off, and in that respect, I couldn't be more proud of them. They battled. We didn't have any hits for five or six innings, whatever it was, and we found a way to take the lead and get to the 9th inning and have a chance to close it out and we were not able to close it out.

And that's how you have to -- you have to finish the game. That's why they say it's 27 outs, and you got to get 27 outs, and we were not able to get that today. So, yeah, this is a tough one. We had what I saw was a lot of people in the stands today that had China flags and a lot of people were supporting this and I'm not even sure if they're from China. It was great to see. Players acknowledged that at the end of the game. We've had a lot of support here. We've had a lot of support, social media from China, from the media in China, and we've had positive things from the media here in Japan and from social media in Japan. I think people are understanding what team China can do. Just proud of these guys.

Q. Let's talk about the bottom of the 7th. You scored four and the game, you had the game won. I guess, are you proud of your offense especially? How do you feel about your offense?

DEAN TREANOR: Absolutely. Like I said, we battled back. We fought last night and we fought today. It would have been very easy for us, I'm not sure when we got our first hit, the 5th or sixth inning, but very easy to be down at that point. We've been down in both games. It would have been very easy for us to give up today.

That's not who team China is, and I think you're seeing that. We battled back and put ourselves in a position to win. Bottom of the 7th was a big inning for us. I mean, you saw our dugout, and I really felt that we were going to get it done. Unfortunately we didn't. But our offense came up big today. It took us a while to get going. There's no excuse. We had a four-hour game last night. We had an early turnaround. We had to get up early this morning and get here early this morning. It's not an excuse, but I don't think the alarm clock went off until about the 5th inning, and we responded very well after that. I know I wanted to throw my alarm clock off the wall this morning when mine went off.

Q. Even though the situation was so tough, you had a night game and you have an early game today, tell us about the top of 9th when you put Ju Kwon in the middle of the inning. What message you told Ju Kwon?

DEAN TREANOR: I needed him to get two outs for us. I saw he looked good in the bullpen. He said he felt good. He said he felt really strong. I think you've seen the last two days that we've had to push our pitching staff. We can't get out of the first inning with our starters. We go into our bullpen early in the game, and I think that was a result of that today. C -- we call him C, and he got us into the 9th inning. He got an out for us. Obviously, the walk hurt in the 9th inning, but it's a matter of he was tired, and we tried to push him through the 9th inning and it wasn't fair to him. We just, our bullpen, our lack of depth in the bullpen really came up to hurt us today, and last night, actually.

Q. You've played two games, last night and today, and you have two games left for the pool B. Any comment for the future two games?

DEAN TREANOR: Everybody in the clubhouse right now, you know, this is a tough one, it hurts. I told 'em it could hurt until 12 o'clock tomorrow. We have another game at 12 o'clock tomorrow and our work is not done. We want to put ourselves in a position to try to force some type of a tie-breaker.

So our expectation is to come out stronger tomorrow, win tomorrow's game, and then obviously we have to beat Korea in the fourth game.

But again, I keep saying this, I like the way we're playing. I like how we fight. There's a lot of positives come out of this. Unfortunately, we didn't get it done today, but we've got to come out, we got two more games and our work's not done. We just had a good meeting. It ended well. Obviously, it hurts for the players, and I think we're going to come out with the same energy and the same focus and the same fight that we've had for the last two games.

Q. When you think about the opponent, the team Czech Republic, how do you feel that their strong, their strong point?

DEAN TREANOR: Obviously, it's a great story. I read their story. It's a great story. It really is. I think that their story obviously continued today. I was going to say this, I mean, you have to give them credit today. They got down and they came back and were able to put up four runs in the 9th inning.

So you have to acknowledge that they got the job done today and we did not. But it's a great story and I think today only adds to that story.

Q. That's only 10 or 12 hours after the first game. Both tough games. Does this happen often in baseball? The second question is: What do you think of the substitution in the last inning, in the 9th, for the pitcher.

DEAN TREANOR: I'm not sure I understood that last part. About superstition for the pitcher? What do you mean?

Q. The substitution.

DEAN TREANOR: Substitution?

Q. Yes.

DEAN TREANOR: We had pushed C as far as we could push him. If it was normal circumstances for the last two days, he wouldn't have gone out there for the 9th inning. I talked to him a couple of times. He wanted to try to get it done for us. He got, he did a great job of getting us to the 9th inning, and we just felt that we had pushed him far enough.

He's coming back from an injury and rehab and I actually probably pushed him a little too far today. But he wanted to stay in there and I gave him, I give him all the credit for staying in there and battling, and it was just a move that we felt we had to make at that time, just kind of to protect him and I know that he was tired. We were asking him to do a lot.

And that's where, you know, you talk about the depth of your bullpen. You know, we have needed guys to step up the last couple of days. Some have and some have not. So any time you don't get out of the first inning and you have to go to your bullpen in the first inning it's not going to be a good day. We had a chance to make it a good day today and then we just didn't get it done.