WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL C - CANADA VS UNITED STATES

March 13, 2023

Ernie Whitt

Noah Skirrow

Chase Field

Team Canada

Pregame Press Conference

Q. Noah, could you describe a little bit getting this opportunity as a guy who was an undrafted free agent, signed with the Phillies, worked your way up the system and now you're here?

NOAH SKIRROW: It's pretty surreal. It's something that I was looking forward to. Something I wanted to do for a long time. Didn't get a chance to play on the junior international team. So to get the call that I was invited to this was a really special moment for me.

Q. Did you start connecting to baseball on an early trip to a Blue Jays game? Is that how you became interested in the sport?

NOAH SKIRROW: It was a actually a church trip when I was probably 6 years old to a Blue Jays game, yes, that's how I got into it.

Q. Do you remember who they were playing?

NOAH SKIRROW: I have no idea who they were playing. I seem to remember Halladay was probably pitching that day. But other than that, I can't really tell you much.

Q. Ernie, in the movies they'll say the upset of Great Britain over Colombia can kind of galvanize other teams into believing they can do some of the same. In reality, is there a message from the manager to the players after something like that, going up against the U.S. today?

ERNIE WHITT: No, I think my message has been clear. It's just every time we take the field, we take it for a reason, and there's a purpose there. And don't take a play off. Play every game that you're engaged in. And if you do that, if you win or you lose, at least you can look yourself in the mirror and say, okay, I gave it my best.

Q. The schedule being four games in as many days, how much does that kind of change how you guys as a staff approach situations, approach the bullpen, approach playing time and the rest?

ERNIE WHITT: It's a little bit of a challenge. Number one, I really don't want to pitch a pitcher this early in the spring back-to-back days. So you try to separate them and save half your bullpen for one day, the other half for the other day.

So I mean that's the way we try to look at it. We try to put the arms together and try to match them up against our opponents and hopefully it will work out.

Q. This tournament is World Cup, it's a surprise song. Life gives you surprises and surprises give you life. And there are teams that, on paper, they're not favorites and we saw today versus Colombia, my country, versus Great Britain. Like you, (indiscernible) Great Britain first win, you also were victorious, now you have two wins. What does this signify that baseball has so many changes and that there's no absolute, not even the Americans or Japanese are dominant. There's no favorite team.

ERNIE WHITT: I'll try to answer that the best that I can. Anytime you play one single game, anything can happen. You have your dominant teams. You look at the teams that are up there, Dominican Republic, USA, Japan. You look at what they've assembled as a team, and on paper they look like they're going to control. But when you play a game, anything can happen.

Great Britain is a great example for it here. I mean, they came out and they gave USA a battle. They jumped out in front of us yesterday, gave us a battle. And again, they beat Colombia today, which is a good ball club also.

So, again, you have to give a lot of credit to some of these teams that qualified to get into this tournament, and you can't take any team lightly because they all play extremely sound baseball.

Q. What's the wildest part of this whole adventure been for you, putting the uniform on, being around the guys and the rest?

NOAH SKIRROW: There's been a lot. I mean right from the start, it's the first time I've ever flown first class. So that was fun. But I guess just being in the same locker room with some long-time big leaguers. We know the names: Freeman and O'Neill and Quantrill and Brash and stuff. That's pretty cool.

But I think the craziest, wildest part of the whole thing is how much we are all pulling in the same direction. To see how quickly guys came together for a common goal here was pretty cool to see with our wide-ranging and lifestyles and backgrounds and everything that everybody's pulling in the same direction right off the bat was pretty cool to see.

Q. Coming out of or being draft eligible in the COVID year, can you describe sort of what your thoughts were going into that draft and then how it turned out that you ended up with the Phillies afterwards?

NOAH SKIRROW: That draft was something that we'll probably never see ever again. To go from the 40 to the five-round format was pretty wild. It really was the wild west of signings. And there was really no way to prepare for it. It was just something that you -- me and my agent were taking it in stride. Hey, we didn't expect this to happen and it's happened.

Just kind of meandered our way through it the best we could. Then free agency opened. And just managed to land on Philly and hit the ground running.

Q. Before the pandemic hit, what were your expectations? What were you thinking going into the spring season about what your outlook would have been going into the draft?

NOAH SKIRROW: I was told by multiple teams that my projection was rounds four to six -- and the sixth round didn't exist. So that made it a little tough. I was quite literally the definition of the bubble.

Q. And when you joined the Phillies, how did that play out?

NOAH SKIRROW: They reached out. They were one of over 20 teams to reach out on the free agency day. And I felt like it was the best fit for me. And they were going to give me the best opportunity to move fast and seemed to do that pretty quickly.

And so I'm happy with where I'm at. The whole thing was a flash in the pan, really, over and done with in three days. So it was pretty wild.