WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC: POOL D - NICARAGUA VS DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

March 6, 2026

Dusty Baker

LoanDepot Park

Team Nicaragua

Postgame Press Conference

Dominican Republic 12, Nicaragua 3

Q. I know you didn't get the result you wanted tonight, but how much can you take away, especially from the first five innings where your team was able to compete toe to toe with the Dominican Republic?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, that was a good game for five innings. The big bats that they have over there, they woke up. Back end of our bullpen wasn't quite as strong as theirs. Everybody that they had coming out of the bullpen was throwing 96, 97, 98 miles an hour. They're a good team with a power bullpen.

Q. What did you like specifically from your team approach-wise in those first couple innings in terms of at-bats and base running, and have you ever seen a lineup like this in any phase of baseball?

DUSTY BAKER: No, I haven't seen a lineup like that in a while. The Yankees back in our day, they had a lineup like that.

Again, in that first inning, we had him on the ropes, and we got to come out of there if possible with more than one run with bases loaded and nobody out. Because I was hoping for a crooked number, and that's something that's been haunting us and plaguing us since I've been here. You've got to get those runners in from third, especially less than two outs in some kind of way other than a strikeout.

Q. Even though this team lost tonight, the last WBC, they scored only four runs in all the games combined. Tonight they scored three runs. What are some of the positive things you take away from a game like this tonight?

DUSTY BAKER: Well, the fact is we had some quality at-bats. I wasn't here the last WBC. I don't know if I could have taken three, four runs the whole WBC because usually my teams hit. The thing that we have to do -- I'm glad that we are playing a day game tomorrow because we don't have much time to think about it. We don't have much time to think about this loss. We don't have time to think about the home runs that they hit.

It's a short night. We'll probably come out with a little bit different lineup to have some fresher bodies in there. But we've got to forget it. We've got three games to go, and hopefully we can win all three of them.