WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL A - PANAMA VS ITALY

March 11, 2023

Luis Ortiz

Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium

Team Panama

Postgame Press Conference

Panama 2, Italy 0

Q. You guys played a complete game today, great pitching, enough offense, great defense, Rubén Tejada had a great play on that grounder to short. How impressed were you with this win with your guys today?

LUIS ORTIZ: That's what I expected. I mean, this team, we can field, we can pitch and we can hit, also. But you know it's like everything else in the game, hitting -- hitting is hard when you face good pitching. It's hard to scratch a couple runs. But we did. We got that solo jack and we manufactured another round, and then that opportunity we had a guy in second, ground ball down the line, they made a good play. They made a couple good plays, so I'm very pleased with the effort after yesterday.

Q. (No translation.)

LUIS ORTIZ: The performance of this team is outstanding. I'm proud of these guys. We came here with that in mind. We had to win a couple games to change the perception of people in baseball. We got good players, and we proved that in this four-game stint.

Q. How will you spend tomorrow, because your team can't qualify but tomorrow, no game. How will you spend tomorrow?

LUIS ORTIZ: Right now I'm leaning towards practicing. They asked me what time I wanted to practice, and I chose a later time. I think it's 1:30. So we'll come out here and we'll do a little thing. We might run a few laps. We might hit. And then we might not do anything, just depends on what happens, how I feel for tomorrow.