WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL B

March 5, 2026

Aaron Judge

Cal Raleigh

Kyle Schwarber

Daikin Park

Team USA

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Aaron the first time that we met was in the tower of London in 2019, and we were there for the MLB reception for the London series as you will no doubt recall. I spoke to you in the shadow of this 11th century castle, and you had just learned a bit of history about the building, which I don't know if you will remember, but you had just learned some of the features of the building, including that just above you were the oldest toilets in London, and we had a great laugh about what a silly thing this is. But more seriously, on that note, 7 years later on the game has grown globally significantly. Events like this mean so much more. Can you talk about what it means to help grow the game internationally and the changes that you have seen in this time since you first came over?

AARON JUDGE: Definitely. I think that's been the coolest part, all of us have been talking about is just you're seeing the best of the best get a chance to represent for their country. I think the coolest thing is when we had that London series, I know Kyle has played in it as well. You are going over to a new country, probably not as familiar with baseball as they are in the U.S., just seeing people wear your jersey. You see little kids running around, they want an autograph. They have a bat and ball in their hand. That's what it is all about, growing this game that we love. Trying to spread it to maybe countries that don't get a chance to see us as much.

It will be a fun event especially coming after the Olympics, which is such a ride and rush. Now snowballing into this, it will be a lot of fun. Can't wait to see how it works out.

Q. I guess this is actually for any one of you. I will start with Aaron. Is it weird to be a home team in this ballpark where you have had some painful, I guess, playoff memories, and how do you enjoy hitting in Daikin Park?

AARON JUDGE: Love hitting here. It's a great par to hit, especially those little Crawford boxes in left, it's always nice. And the short wall in right.

Great place to play. Like you said, had some tough memories here. Had some good memories here. It's part of it. Now getting a chance to wear the red, white and blue. Going to have a lot of great memories in here, I think.

Q. Since you guys have been hanging around together, have you guys even jokingly, with Skubal, trying to recruit him, saying, hey, New York's a great place, Seattle's a great place, Philly is a great place, trying to recruit him as a free agent?

KYLE SCHWARBER: No, this isn't about our organizational baseball right now. This is about the three letters across our chest. We are looking forward to the journey ahead, seven wins. That's our goal right here, one at a time. Any time that you get him or any of our other starters on the mound, it's going to be a really good day for us.

Q. On that note, Kyle, you talk about it not being about organizational baseball but rather about your country. Can you go into the pride that goes into this when you're competing against the world?

KYLE SCHWARBER: Absolutely. I think the best part about our game is there are so many different cultures in our game. We obviously all play organizationally, but this is about everyone having the pride for their country and trying to, you know, represent them the best that you can through your own ability.

It is never taken lightly. This is my third opportunity to wear USA across my chest. Every time it means something just as special as the last time. You never take it for granted.

Obviously we have a great group of individuals in the room, and you get to take notes, mental notes, see how everyone is preparing and knowing that whenever we step out on the field tomorrow that we are going to get everyone's best shot -- every country's best shot against us, and we will be prepared to give them our best shot as well.

Q. Kyle, DeRosa and Logan said you had the mic when you guys, I guess, were on the bus going to the airport. What were you saying or singing?

KYLE SCHWARBER: I do not sing, but it was just more about getting the boys together. It is just something that, since I came up into the big leagues, that it brings that kind of camaraderie together.

We get laughs, jokes, but at the end of the day it is about -- we got a lot of people in the room that haven't got to play with each other. And we are doing -- first off, we are doing a fantastic job of just creating our culture that we want to have for our time together. It was just something I -- you just want to continue to do to bring everyone closer.

I feel like we got a really good presence set by, obviously, Judgey over here, DeRosa, everyone in the room. And we are excited to step on the field tomorrow.

Q. Aaron, being the captain, was there any strenuous recruiting needed to be able to get guys to do this? Or did you have guys coming to you saying, hey, put in a good word with DeRo for me.

AARON JUDGE: For the most part, it was just a lot of guys asking me, during stretch, hey, I want to be a part of this -- anyway you could squeeze me on this team because it is going to be something special.

I really didn't do too much recruiting. I think the coolest part was just guys, a lot of our best players, early on, saying, I'm in. I'm in. That helped with the recruiting process. You look at these guys up here. They were right away wanting to join and wanting to be a part of this. It makes it easy when I get to hit with these guys in the lineup. It's, like, how could you not want to be a part of that?

DeRo did a great job assembling the team that he did. A lot of hard-working, great guys. It has been an incredible couple of days. And looking forward to some more great memories of them.

Q. In any of your guys' time here, as visiting players, is there anything you enjoy about Houston or anything you are looking forward to for eight, nine days in Houston?

CAL RALEIGH: I think all of these guys here can kind of come in here, it is always a tough place to play. It is a great environment.

It is a little weird walking into the home locker room. A little different pace.

I think we're all excited. I think we're all antsy, we are all ready to get going. We want to play a game.

We are excited, excited to be here. We have enjoyed our time here so far.

Q. With you two guys as lefties, are there an pros and cons to hitting at Daikin?

CAL RALEIGH: I don't think it changes your approach. Like Aaron said, it's a good place to hit. Down the line is pretty short. But I don't think anything changes. You keep your same approach. If you happen to pull it, you pull it.

Q. Cal, I will give you another one. Obviously you are probably not going to get booed with those colors on. But I'm sure you're aware on Astros Twitter, you became a meme for what you said after a game. Have you ever gotten anything like that whenever you come to town here?

CAL RALEIGH: It's a pretty heated rivalry, like, being in division with them. They don't like us; we don't like them. But I think wearing USA, I think for a little bit of time they will cheer for us.

But, yeah, that is how baseball is. You want those kind of things happening. You want to have those kind of rivalries and those tough games. It's usually what you get here. But, like I said, I think they will put that aside for country pride.

Q. DeRo talked about having the passion that some of the Latin American teams have. Who will be the first one jumping over the fence when there's a big home run?

KYLE SCHWARBER: It will be all of us, I tell you that. We are all going to be excited. This isn't about showing any one up. This is about us pumping each other up and showing that we are going to keep that energy going as much as we can -- big punch out, whatever it is; big home run. We are all going to be out there. This is how you keep momentum going. You want the excitement. You want the edge.

This is about -- obviously this is going to be a great environment, but you also have to create your own energy. And we are going to be very energetic in our dugout.

Q. Aaron, you talked about lining up and hitting along with these guys. Obviously it is a team, you can say it is an All-Star team, the way it is built, right? Is there -- maybe a weakness is the wrong word to use -- but is there an area where you say, okay, this is maybe where we need to focus a little bit more on, as far as not having an advantage?

AARON JUDGE: No. I like our lineup up and down and the guys we have on the bench. It's just incredible. You have a guy like, with Alf (phonetic), and you've got a guy like Roman Anthony coming off the bench for you. You have a guy like Ernie Clement, postseason leader in hits. What he did this last postseason is just -- you can kind of plug him in anywhere. It's going to be incredible.

I think what's going to help us out a lot, one of our strengths is, if I don't get the job done, I know I've got Schwarbs and Cal right behind me to finish it up and so on and so on.

So, just us feeding off each other, trusting each other, not trying to be the one guy that goes up there and does the job. Hey, let's lean into each other. As a team, we are going to take care of business.