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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: ROUND ONEMarch 3, 2006Jim LefebvreWei WangPOOL A: TOKYO, JAPAN Q. I have a question to the manager. Today I think we all felt that baseball is a very, very mental game. When the pitcher was able to get out of Ichiro, but the first base runner was safe, and later he got a home run hit by the batter, until then, China was doing good. What do you feel about how your team performed today? JIM LEFEBVRE: I agree. It was a good game until their power just came. Japan has a lot of power. When the power starts showing up, the game changed dramatically. They are a great team. They are a great team. It was a good game up to that point, and at the end, it just got away from us. All in all, I thought our guys played well. I thought we pitched well. We made a few errors, but all in all, I think we played better than the score. Q. You hit your home run and it was a tight score at that point. Obviously this is a game coming in where people didn't expect China to be hanging around very long, much less through four innings. Talk about your feeling when you hit your home run and what it did for your team to have a tight score at that point and shattering the expectations of a lot of people around the tournament? WEI WANG: Well, I didn't think I could hit a home run then. I swung the bat and I went through a lot of training in America, and that was what made the difference I think. And when I hit the two-run home run, our spirits were high, that's for sure. Q. The pitchers of your team, how do you think your pitchers did and what is your impression of the Japanese batters? WEI WANG: The first half of a game, we showed a performance that was not so bad. But later we had younger pitchers on the mound that didn't have much experience, so their control was not good enough. Japan's offense was so powerful. Q. The first pitcher had a tough time, what is your impression for the performance today and what is the advice you gave your players as to how to hit Uehara? JIM LEFEBVRE: He thought he did all right. I thought Uehara did good. I thought his fastball is not as fast as we saw before. He got some big outs when he needed them. He's a veteran guy. We had some runners on base, but he pitched out of those jams. He's experienced and he's very good. We had the two-run home run to tie the game up, but we didn't get much after that. No, I was impressed with him. One thing we try to do is he was very aggressive early in the count with his fastball, and we just told them, don't swing at the split-finger, the breaking ball, until two strikes, look for a ball up in the strike zone and be ready to hit early in the count. That's what I told the hitters, and we got some hits. When he needed to get some outs, he got them. Q. The pitchers after the fifth inning were young guys, was that the big difference, do you think? JIM LEFEBVRE: Our thinking was simple. We don't have a lot of pitching depth and we have two more games. When we got way behind, our thinking was we have to save our better pitchers for Korea and also Taiwan. So we went with the young players. They needed to get out there, it was a good experience for them. They did make some mistakes with some home runs. But in the long haul, they got the experience, but we saved our pitching for tomorrow and also pitching against Taiwan. That's very important now with the pitch counts that we have. So we had to make changes on that and try to keep our more veteran guys fresh for tomorrow. Zheng Xu will be our starting pitcher. Q. Was there a point after you guys tied it up that Japan had a moment of clarity; that if we don't start playing, something may happen, do you think there was a moment like that, because it seems that the following inning they started tearing it up offensively, and do you think that was a catalyst, I guess, is the best way to ask the question? JIM LEFEBVRE: Yeah, I think so. It was a good game up to that point. Then suddenly they just kind of turned it up a notch and they got some runners on base. We made some mistakes and they hit home runs. Their power really came today. I remember reading the post, they have power but it has not shown up yet. Well, it showed up in the fifth inning on, and it showed up big. They have a lot of depth in their lineup. They have a lot of good hitters in their lineup and a lot of power. We just didn't have enough for them tonight when we got to the later innings. They are just a great team and they showed that tonight. After we tied it up, they just turned it up and took off. Q. Good for your team to be able to come back so early tomorrow and not have a chance to let this sink in and go right back on the field tomorrow at 11:30? JIM LEFEBVRE: Yeah, I think so. I told the players to forget about it. I thought we played well. Unfortunately the score was not really indicative of what, you know, the way we played. We played with a lot of confidence today. I think the kids were loose and relaxed and enjoyed the experience. Sometimes it's best to go home and get a good night's sleep and come out tomorrow and let's play. I think that's going to be good for us. Q. I think you gained a lot of self-confidence, how do you feel about that? WEI WANG: Throughout the game I played today, yes, I did gain some self-confidence. I did hit a home run from Mr. Uehara; he's a great pitcher. And tomorrow I think we can come up with a better result.
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