WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL C - UNITED STATES VS COLOMBIA

March 15, 2023

Jolbert Cabrera

Chase Field

Team Colombia

Postgame Press Conference

USA - 3, Colombia - 2

Q. The game, Colombia died with the sword. What's the balance for Colombia for the entirety of the tournament, the good, the bad? And also you can speak about the game of today?

JOLBERT CABRERA: The balance is positive. I think what the boys did on the first game and today, they showed the that baseball in Colombia is growing. They're not scared of playing against anybody, against no opponent.

It's extraordinary, the value that they faced. Today's game was phenomenal. Today's game, you are fighting against a monster with 15 heads. You cut one down, two more come out and replace the old one.

It's very difficult what they did today, and they know they were maintaining the game against the bullpen like they did today. The boys reacted offensively. But unfortunately we were short and today happened what happened.

To me, the balance that we have, we have new players for the future, new pitchers Galindo, Zuniga, Ocampo, Flores. You saw them today, Daruso (phonetic). We have a lot more to give in the future. And we think they should be proud about the work they did today.

Q. What can you say about to inject after the balance that you said? What are we going to work on, what -- on what aspect so we can continue to grow next? So we can start thinking about the new Classic that we'll have to face?

JOLBERT CABRERA: We think that we have to think about the future of Colombian baseball with the youth and keep injecting the new players that they're starting right now in the minor leagues, so that when they get to higher levels like Double-A, Triple-A, Major League that they're ready to help us. We can't do anything more.

We have to keep on working with what we have right now. That it's immense, and what the boys showed today hard. And also Luis De Avila, he started the game, definitely was spectacular. I'm very proud of the labor that they did today.

Q. We're going to have to do preliminaries again. And it was the last time you played that when you had to wear the jersey in Panama. What is your opinion that we have to go through that again?

JOLBERT CABRERA: It's something that happened in life. Obviously the team of Great Britain, they won. They beat us in one of the games. And we have to keep on working, work again and continue with this process that we had today.

Right now we have a better bullpen now. If we would have had a little bit better pitcher with more experience -- the two games that we lost, Canada and Great Britain, another thing would have happened. But we can't do anything more because that's in the past now.