WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: QUARTERFINALS 2 - USA VS VENEZUELA

March 18, 2023

Omar López

LoanDepot Park

Team Venezuela

Postgame Press Conference

United States - 9, Venezuela - 7

THE MODERATOR: Who has the first question for Omar?

Q. Why didn't you use Miguel Cabrera in the 8th inning when you were two runs behind on the scoreboard? Didn't you think using him?

OMAR LOPEZ: No. His plan is against left-handed pitchers. If they brought Peralta, we would have put Miguel Cabrera.

Q. Starting winning, then come back in the game, and then losing. Your thoughts about that?

OMAR LOPEZ: Frustrating. It's frustrating. When a team is fighting in a game from the very beginning and something else happens in the game because it's baseball you totally are facing a totally different situation. Unfortunately, this is baseball. We have to accept this and as men we have to keep our heads up. It is not easy, especially when they came back in the game. The guys were firm, they were solid, but they had a different plan for us.

Q. In that inning where the situation was complicated after the home run, the thought process, how was it of that inning?

OMAR LOPEZ: I left Quijada on the mound after the single by Alonso. I've seen in the last couple of years historically those pitches are not very effective against left-handed hitters. We're trying to save an out, maybe I wanted Alvarado to be ready to bring him. He could make one or two outs. He cannot pitch over four outs. So I had to think for the 9th inning who could be the relief pitcher. Silvino was ready and that's the one that I brought.

Q. That Silvino inning, he did only one run pitch, that changeup. What did you see? Did you talk to Salvador? What kind of pitch he should have thrown?

OMAR LOPEZ: A long time ago when I was managing in Class A, I was to work with a PFP, as they call it, and I was in the pitching rover and I was looking at the home plate and I saw that square of the home plate so far away, and I thought, how do the pitchers do in order to locate the pitches, and that day I thought to myself, I'm not going to judge a pitcher because of a pitch because at that point in time they are the ones that control the ball.

Silvino did a great job in the exhibition games. That pitch was a little higher and Turner was able to hit the home run. I've seen so many pitches that are right in the middle of the home plate and the hitters fail. And that's baseball, unfortunately. The most disappointing thing is that part of the national team, they were -- they are warriors and now we're saying goodbye this way.

Q. Was it difficult to deal with the relief pitchers? Because Martín Pérez was not able to stand the first inning, you had to remove him, you had to substitute him immediately.

OMAR LOPEZ: Yes, but we had Luis Garcia. Luis did his job. What he did in the tournament, he come in the middle of the inning and he made two outs or so, Garcia was in the game and that's what he did. It's tough if I didn't have Luis Garcia. He made my job easier to come to the final innings. We couldn't capitalize on that, but I'm very proud of the boys what they did during the tournament. Venezuela should be proud of our team because of the job we did here in the WBC.

Q. Without having the medical tests, are you concerned about Jose Altuve?

OMAR LOPEZ: Of course I'm deeply concerned, sad, frustrated. I would like to express my emotions in a different way, but have I to be strong in front of you, in front of my family, in front of my country. Let's wait for a couple of days. The Houston Astros will conduct the tests with Jose. I'm very concerned, deeply concerned.

I asked God to give back the players to the organizations in a healthy way. It is easy to pray when things go well, but when things go bad, we have to pray and ask Him to give us strength and to desire the mental and physical recuperation of all the team.

Q. As a manager, how hard is it to watch when the opposing pitcher is having the kind of command issues that Daniel Bard was having and then seeing your star player get hurt?

OMAR LOPEZ: It's very difficult because, number one, we were down in that inning and then where we see Daniel Bard historically -- we know he had struggle with command and the first thing we said is just be patient at the plate.

But I never thought that he's going to come up with a pitch inside up opening to Jose in that situation. Unfortunately, Jose wasn't able to kind of recognize right away, and then when he went down, obviously the whole dugout didn't look good. It took 10 seconds for Tomas Vera, my trainer to get him out of the game. And I was like, oh, my God, okay. We'll see happens. I started to pray right away for Jose, for the entire team.

That was our momentum right there when we took the lead and then at some point the whole dugout kind of died, like quiet, and we kind of pushed everybody to get up and move on because, I mean, he's going to be fine, obviously, and we start to pray right away for him. It was a difficult situation for me.

Q. First of all, congratulations. Sincerely, I think that did you a great job and you showed strong character. If you had to choose a moment of this WBC where Venezuela was in the pool of death and you were in it, what would be your moment, a victory over the Dominican Republic or what?

OMAR LOPEZ: I would have change -- or exchanged a victory of the first round for this victory today because I only needed three victories in the first round. I would prefer to win today. But that's baseball, my brother. And we feel deeply affected, you know, because we had a different illusion.

But you have to take a deep breath, ask God to be strong to wake up tomorrow and move on. I feel very proud of the players. We had a group of 60 people, including the office, including the trainers, everyone, and 30 of us were believing in God and now 50 or 60 believe in God, knowing that God exists and that he helps us and supports us. This is a lesson that we have learned.

And last but not least, we left the dark past in Venezuela. We were seen in a different way in the WBC and this generation and the people supporting me, my coaches, everyone, should repeat the same format or better for the next WBC.

Q. Could you explain the situation on the second base, what you complained about?

OMAR LOPEZ: The WBC rules, according to the replay, you only have 20 seconds to submit the complaint. The U.S. manager raised their hand. They were not paying attention to that and I was looking at the clock. The time passed by, and he had the opportunity to challenge that play. In that situation, I talked to the umpire and he told me that there was a problem in the umpire rotation and I explained to him that's not my responsibility, rules are rules. But bottom line, that happened.

I don't know if that was a cause or something that could benefit us with the next player, but this is the game. They have a job to do, they have a situation to face, and sometimes they can get lost in some situations. I'm not judging them. This is part of the game. Thank you so much for the opportunity.