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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: ROUND ONE

March 5, 2006

Jim Lefebvre

POOL A: TOKYO, JAPAN

Q. Technically your team, how did your Chinese team do during this event? And if you think there's if you think there is improvement for your team, what part do you think they are good at and what can you do to improve them?
JIM LEFEBVRE: The first thing is that we're going to go back and we're going to evaluate every game, how we played. We have a lot to learn.
Today, we made three errors and it cost us I think six runs -- nine runs, we gave the team just because of errors. I mean, just plays that you have to make, flyballs to right field, you've got to catch that; ball back to the pitcher, which we practice every day, we can't even make that play.
So it's not all about hitting and pitching; it's about playing defense. And we've worked real hard on that, but in this series, we did not play very good defensively. That's one thing we've got to really work on.
Pitching-wise, we've got to improve our depth. We pitched well at times but we pitched terrible at other times. We've got to start concentrating about pitching. Pitching is not about one pitch. Pitching is not about one location. Pitching is about making a combination of pitches and moving the ball around, changing speeds, and we have to work on that. We made some mistakes, in this whole series, and it's cost us. So we have a lot to go back and analyze and break up.
I think that it was not a pretty series, to say the least, as far as China. But it was a great learning experience. If we would have eliminated key plays, we would have played much better, and we have to correct that, if we expect to play at this level.
Q. Nerves might have come in to affect more today than the other two games, but was that a factor, do you think?
JIM LEFEBVRE: Yes, real nervous out there today. This is a big game for us, of course. I do, I think nerves had a lot to do with it. But that's part of being a professional baseball player and that's a part of playing in big games. You have to calm down and just play the game, catch the ball, throw it, make the plays, put the ball in play and we didn't do that. Today was a good example of that.
Q. After this game, what do they do, where do they go, what happens between now and the end of the year?
JIM LEFEBVRE: You know what's going to happen to us, we're going to go back home and they are going to get involved with the CBL, which is their professional league. This summer, we're going to come to Japan again and play in the Japanese Minor Leagues to get the kind of quality games that we need to do. We're also going to go over to Harlem in Holland to play in a special tournament there. We're also going to bring them to the Arizona instructional league where we'll play against better competition and a lot of speed and the different organizations in Arizona. Then we have a tournament at the end of the year.
So we have a lot of things planned. We have two years to get ready for the Olympics, and that's why I'm here and that's why MLB has been involved. So we have got to -- another thing I would like to see us do is start playing a lot more of the younger players. That's important to our future and start developing some youth programs in China, so we can have a feeder system and just start looking forward better players.
So we have a full schedule and a full plan involvement with these guys, and then after this, this is basically the opening of our season, and this is just the start that we've got to start really focusing in to be much better baseball players.
Q. You had the 65-pitching rule for this Asian round, is this rule might be good for a team with pitchers with depth. This rule must have been a disadvantage for a team like yours; what do you think?
JIM LEFEBVRE: I agree with it. That's a good question and that's a good analysis. But you know what the rule actually helped us, because in a sense, we had to use all of our pitchers, and I think sometimes when you go to tournaments, you have a focus maybe on only five pitchers or overuse them.
But the fact is that the pitch limit that there was forced us to use our whole staff, and then we can find the weaknesses and the strengths. It gives everybody a chance to play.
I put a lot of the kids in there, the young players, so they can get the experience of playing in the World Baseball Classic; so they can go home and say now, yes, I've played in it, I know what it's like.
But as far as our pitchers are concerned, they have to realize that a pitching staff is not about one pitcher or two pitchers; it's about everybody. And everybody has got to contribute to. So in that respect, it's helped us and we're going to learn from that.
In order to have -- I managed in the big leagues. You have to use your whole staff. You know, everybody has a role, and we'll try to figure that out, who is going to play what role as we go along. But you have to use all your pitchers.
So this tournament has been good for us in the sense that now the pitchers realize that everybody is going to go on the mound. Everybody is going to go out there and pitch, and everybody is going to have to do their job. And so in that respect, it helped us.
I just want to say that we didn't play very well, and obviously, it showed. But, I just want to thank the World Baseball Classic for allowing us to be part of it, even though it didn't do well, it's going to help us grow up. It's going to help us grow up as a country as far as baseball is concerned. The Classic has been run great. The big times are right now, Japan, of course, Korea, and a chance to advance, but for us, it was just a privilege to be here, a great opportunity that when we come the next time, we'll be more prepared. We'll be ready for the tournament.
So in that respect, we have nothing but good things to say about the tournament.
Q. Could you compare your experience in the WBC and your experience last year in the Asian series?
JIM LEFEBVRE: Yeah. The Knumami Cup (ph) is a great tournament and we learned a lot from that. But this is about Major League players. This is about the best players in the world from all of the different countries, and that's the highest level of talent that we have faced.
And so, yeah, Knunami Cup (ph) was very good for us experience-wise, but you realize that when you get to that next level, you've got to make the plays, you've got to do the little things that is going to help you win, and we didn't do that today to cause a lot of runs. Each level is making us, forcing us to get better.

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