WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL C - CANADA VS COLOMBIA

March 14, 2023

Ernie Whitt

Rob Zastryzny

Chase Field

Team Canada

Pregame Press Conference

Q. Quick turnaround for you guys today. Every team has got to go through that at some point -- Britain went through it the other day. How do you get the energy ramped up knowing the importance of this game?

ERNIE WHITT: I think coming into the tournament we kind of knew that we had to win three games to guarantee us going forward. And the three games were we had to beat Great Britain, Colombia and Mexico.

It's right on the table. If we do that, then we'll move forward.

Q. You've managed in a lot of big games before at the helm for Canada. Knowing that you need to probably win this game to advance, or the math starts getting involved -- nobody wants math -- what's the message to the team?

ERNIE WHITT: I think the team knows. I mean, the players, you tell them what is at stake, let them go out and play. They're professionals. Hopefully the stage is not too big for them. And they know what they have to do to win.

Naturally we'd like to get the bats going early and kind of take the other team out of it. But they're in the same situation, too. I mean, it's two good teams going against each other.

Q. What message have you given to the team to keep them from pressing, keep them from playing with too much desperation?

ERNIE WHITT: I don't know whether you can give them any message like that. You're up front with them. You tell them this is what we need to do. And you either go out and you do it or you don't. It's a very simple thought, basically.

And I think we have some good offensive players. We have some good arms that are available to us. We've kind of planned it the way it is. Hopefully how it will unfold, it will be in a direction that we want it to go.

Q. With that in mind, Colombia is starting a left-hander today. Does that kind of change the way your lineup is going to get rolled out there?

ERNIE WHITT: No, not really. We face lefties all the time. You try to put your players in a position where they're going to be successful and you play with what you've got.

And we have six left-handed hitters in the lineup today. So I believe we have six -- there's one switch-hitter and two righties.

It is what we have. And we've done it before and we will probably continue to do it for a long time because we produce a lot of left-handed hitters up in Canada.

Q. Rob, what's the mood in the clubhouse amongst your teammates?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: The mood is good. Like he said a little tough loss yesterday, but a lot of guys who have been in situations like this before. This isn't new to a lot of us. And we're just ready to go out there take it game by game and try to win this thing.

Q. Rob, is your presence up there indicative of the fact that you're starting tomorrow? Is that the plan against Mexico?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: That's what I've heard, yes.

Q. You've already started to game plan for Mexico, I assume. What have you seen from their lineup, either watching the first couple of games or from things you've dug into?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: I played against most of those guys before in my career. And basically it's a story of last night all over again; when the guys go out there and attack the zone, keep the hitters on their heels, a lot of success happens. So that's the plan for tomorrow.

Q. Can you talk about the influence Freddie Freeman has in the clubhouse?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: It's awesome to play with him. He's a very approachable guy. Everybody knows who he is. If you watch the games, everybody wants to talk to him when they get on first base. It's kind of the same thing here. He makes himself available to guys.

And during one of our practices, one of the young guys was talking to him during BP for about an hour, and they had to basically pull the kid to his hitting group to go hit because he wanted to talk to Freddie.

He's one of those guys you want to be around and you can learn a lot from just watching, but he's always available for questions as well. It's guys like that that you enjoy playing with.

ERNIE WHITT: Well said. Well said.

Q. How would you compare sort of the atmospheric pressures and everything the team goes through in a tournament like this to maybe what you saw when you were with the Cubs during the postseason runs there?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: It's kind of similar feelings. When we were with Chicago, it was 108 years and there's a lot of pressure, a lot of external stuff going on. It kind of feels the same way when you're playing for your country.

There's a lot of stuff where -- it's the same game when you go out there, but when you have Canada on your chest or your in the playoffs or whatever it is, you just feel like a lot of exterior pressure on you.

And it's a very good experience for some of these young guys. We saw it from Mitch yesterday. Whatever happens, happens, but he's going to learn so much from that outing. He's going to learn from so much what he did.

And you can't really recreate this kind of emotion or this kind of environment in spring. And that was one of the reasons I wanted to come here was I wanted to compete on a big stage with Team Canada across my chest. It's very rare that you get to do that.

Q. For yourself, going into that outing tomorrow, what does it sort of mean to you for where you are in your career right now?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: It means a lot. When I first got drafted, I didn't know what my career was going to look like. Obviously you have high expectations for yourself. But being able to put on the jersey at the age of 30, and I'm about to turn 31, means the world to me.

I feel like I hit a turn in my career a couple years ago after I had an elbow surgery. This is kind of a moment that you train for. Whenever you're going through rehab, whenever you're going through the rough times or your third year in Triple-A or whatever it is, if you think about moments like this, where you get to go take the mound for your country or big leagues or whatever it is, it's just something that I do not take lightly.

Q. And for yourself being a guy fighting for a job with the Pirates this year, how did you weigh coming out here, having this experience, versus pursuing your professional goals to balancing the demands between club and country there?

ROB ZASTRYZNY: So my priority is always going to be with the team that signs me and the team I'm going to be with. But going into this year, I told every team that I talked to in free agency that this is where I was going to be and how that would look if I signed there.

And as soon as I mentioned that to the Pirates they were more willing. They even said the same thing I said earlier: You cannot recreate a big league environment or playoff environment in March, no matter how seriously you play in spring or how many fans come out to the game or whatever it is.

So it's a good opportunity for them to see me in an environment like this, and it's a good opportunity for me to show what I'm capable of here.

But my priorities as of right now, as soon as I got on the plane to come here, was to pitch for Team Canada and do whatever I could to help us win and go to the next round.