WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL C - COLOMBIA VS MEXICO

March 11, 2023

Jorge Alfaro

Chase Field

Team Colombia

Postgame Press Conference

Colombia- 5, Mexico - 4 (10)

Q. What does a win like this mean to you, the team but also Colombia baseball as a whole?

JORGE ALFARO: It means a lot to us. This is a country that's known for soccer a lot. But at the same time we just go out there and tried to show everybody and put that in their mind, that we're going out there. We're not afraid to play baseball and we can play baseball.

Q. What's this signify, the Classic 2023 when you are trying to keep in the Boston Red Sox lineup, and now you come from the (indiscernible) American where you were the MVP from that series. Now you were fundamental baseball player and the winner of Colombia.

JORGE ALFARO: Like I said before, we went out there to represent a country. We have a name on the chest that represents us all. And we went out there. We just, each of us, we put our grain of sand. We try to hit. We don't try to be a hero. We just try to play the game, to play the ball. Small things, the small plays.

When we have to do it -- and that's when we got presented our turn to bat, we simply we didn't try to do a lot. We just tried to execute our plan, keep in our plan.

Mexico is a very good team, you know? And Urias, he's one of the best pitchers in the MLB. And we knew that if we had this mentality that we had to do a lot of things he was going to be able to -- he could dominate us like how he did at the start of the game.

But after that, we went out there. Each turn we just tried to look for good contact. Not try to do much and things happened.

Q. I had the opportunity to be at Spring Training with you and see your at-bat with several teams. Regularly we would see a player, a baseball player that he was always batting. He would always try to hit the home run, hit the hardest. You could say that's what we thought of Alfaro. But today we saw a better adjustment out of Alfaro. He was just trying to hit. When did this evolution occur?

JORGE ALFARO: One grows as a person. One gets mature as a person, as a player, like everything, like everyone. No one just stays still. Whatever you do in a job, whatever you do, everyone wants to be better in whatever they do.

And one part that helped me a lot was playing in Dominicana, Dominican Republic. It's a strong league. It has a lot of attention from all of Latin America. It's a very good league.

And I grew up a lot, matured in the sense of I learned that I don't have to hit a home run every time that I'm at-bat. I just need to make good contact. And then the game dictates whatever I have to do. If it's a hit, it's an out, simply I just try to give the best in that moment.

If the opportunity comes, it happens. If it didn't, then wait for the next opportunity. Overall, just not try to be hero. I just try to help, help the team, whatever I can.

Q. You broke the ice with Julio in that fifth inning. Do the emotions when you got to second base, and when Reynaldo also had the home run, in the dugout, to do that against Julio Urias.

JORGE ALFARO: You know, we enjoyed the game. Not only we understood that he's a great pitcher, also that Mexico is a great team. We also enjoy what we do.

I got to second base. Attitude, positivity for the team, try to bring it up because we can't be underneath with the good pitching -- we can't believe that we're less than the other team. We're all the same on the field.

Simply my reaction during the game, I'm a very calm person, but I enjoy the game. It's the same when -- all kids love the game. And that's what we did today. And we did it. We have a lot of young kids with a lot of talent. We can't simply go out there and be robots without sentiments, without feelings. You have to enjoy.

Q. Just wondering, what is the comparison, how does this compare to you guys beating the Dodgers last year in the playoffs?

JORGE ALFARO: When I was with the Padres that's the biggest team that you want to beat in the game. And, again, you want to play the best you can against them. And it's the same way today.

We came here and we tried to do the same thing because Mexico is a really good team. Urias was good but we're not afraid to go out there and compete. We were hungry. We went out there and tried to get the win. And thanks to God everything went well and we have the win. We had the game.

Q. Which one?

JORGE ALFARO: I'll say both.

Q. Today, Colombia, there was a tendency in online, even after it was even more than a football team. When did you generate so much interest that even you passed the borders before of having -- before nobody cared for you. Now people are wanting to know about you.

JORGE ALFARO: What happened, what broke the ice was Caribbean series when we won it as a country, you understand? All the eyes were on Colombia after that. The paper that we had and the last Classic, everyone was able to see that we were young, but we were not scared.

We go out there and compete. We know how to play baseball. Simply it's just that. The team is young and there's a lot of talent. So you could see that we went out there to compete. We went out there to play at the same level with them.

And it didn't matter -- nothing. We just wanted to represent our country. We have the colors of our country, the uniform. And we went out there, we went out there as a war and we left everything out on the field.