|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC POOL C: TORONTOMarch 8, 2009Vince PerkinsErnie WhittTORONTO, ONTARIO THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everyone. Q. Vince, your pitching staff gets a huge boost yesterday. Guys were striking out Chipper Jones and getting out of jams and stuff. What's it do for you just watching it all happen? VINCE PERKINS: You know, it's nice to see guys go out there and get quick outs and give our hitters a chance to, you know, kind of do what they do, hit the ball. Q. Vince, there's another guy in the pitching staff, Scott Richmond, who's gone through a long, hard road to get to the majors. Do you almost look at him as an inspiration of being able to go from where you are, to making a big major league career out of things? VINCE PERKINS: Yeah, definitely. You know, I talked to Scott today out in the outfield during B.P., and it's a truly inspirational story to see that, you know. Really, it took him five months to get to the big leagues once he started playing affiliated baseball. And just the road he went through before that, you know. He worked for three years, and kind of went undrafted, unnoticed, under the radar, then kind of just popped up. And, you know, it is good for guys like us, like myself, to be able to see that, you know, anything can happen. Q. Can you just talk about your opportunity tomorrow, and obviously a huge game tomorrow afternoon? VINCE PERKINS: Yeah, you know, I'm excited for it. My arm's never felt better than it does right now. I've had a tough couple years the last two years, and I feel like I've come off it finally pretty well. And I'm just ready to go. And, you know, do what I can do and show people that I can pitch. Q. Ernie, coming into this tournament, most of the question marks surrounded your pitching. How many of those questions have been answered and how many more do you have to find out? ERNIE WHITT: Well, I think until you are through with the tournament, you know, you really don't know. I thought the guys threw extremely well yesterday. The guys that we put out there. You know, I mean, the U.S.A.'s got a pretty good hitting ball club. They hit three home runs against us and that was the telltale of the tape. But, you know, those guys are paid money to hit home runs. You know, Adam Dunn, it wasn't a bad pitch. The ball on Johnson with McCann, just drifted back over the plate. So we gave ourselves opportunities to win the plate. It didn't happen. I was happy with the pitching staff, what they did yesterday. And I'm very confident going in with all of our pitchers available to pitch tomorrow. Q. Ernie, I'm wondering if you thought about how you might manage your pitchers in tomorrow's game considering you could be playing an elimination game the following day? ERNIE WHITT: Well, tomorrow's elimination day. Q. That's true. ERNIE WHITT: So we're playing it one inning at a time. And, you know, we can't let the game get out of hand. And so hopefully, you know, we have all the confidence in the world in Vince, that he can give us at least three strong innings or go through the line-up twice. We're going to back him up with Scott Diamond, who has been very successful at the lower level in baseball, a real good left-handed pitcher. So we're confident in the two guys that we have going tomorrow. And then after those two, then whatever it takes to win a ball game. Q. Ernie, as you pointed out yesterday, you pretty much got all of your offense, at least the hits from two guys. How key is it to get Morneau, Bay, Stairs, getting some hits tomorrow? ERNIE WHITT: I think it's really key to have all of our guys hitting. We want to be going on all cylinders. Again, that takes a lot of pressure off the pitching staff, too. We had some opportunities yesterday, we just didn't cash in on them. In retrospect they had an opportunity, bases loaded and no one out, and Aumont did a great job getting out of that. It will be nice for all of our hitters to click at the same time. And like I said, it will take pressure off our pitching staff. Q. Vince, how much consternation was it for you to sign with a new team, your arm's feeling good, to go back with the Cubs, and to have to deal with the decision of pitching for Canada, knowing there might be something left out there for you and not being with the Cubs right now? VINCE PERKINS: Yeah, you know, I committed to pitching with Canada. That's obviously what I wanted to do. I spoke with actually Jim Hendry and O'Nary Fleta (phonetic), the G.M. in the minor league, director of the Cubs, and they said, Go ahead, go, have a good time, and don't worry about having a job here, is basically what they told me. Q. Ernie, the Italian line-up doesn't really have the names that the Venezuelans and the Americans do. What do you know about the Italian team? ERNIE WHITT: Last night was the first night that I saw them play. They've got a real good ball club. We don't take anyone lightly. You know, they pitched fairly well. They played good defense out there. You know, they had some opportunities to score runs, and they failed on it, you know, which could have been a different case. If they would have cashed in on those, it could have put pressure on Venezuela, and who knows what would have happened. We know they're a very good ball club, and we have our hands full. Again, we're just hoping that our hitters respond and score a lot of runs. Q. Ernie, for tomorrow's game, do you have any line-up changes or batting order changes? And were you happy at second and short yesterday? ERNIE WHITT: I don't foresee any changes at this point in time. I'm -- you know, I'd like to see, you know, Barney, the first three exhibition games, he played very well for us in the lead-off spot. If you look at his numbers, his on-base percentage is really good. So I look at my line-up, and I look at who I feel is the best lead-off hitter that we have, the options that I have, and basically, you know, if Adam Stern is not playing, then I think Barney is our second choice as far as lead-off hitters. Again I don't foresee myself making any changes in the outfield. Q. Vince, I'm wondering if pitchers are at all affected by the energy of a crowd? Clearly, Mike Johnson yesterday must have felt 42,000 people staring down on him. My guess is it won't be quite the buzz tomorrow. And I wonder if it impacts you one way or the other? VINCE PERKINS: You know, I've never pitched in front of 42,000 people. You know, the closest I came was probably down in winter ball, pitching in front of 20 to 25,000. For me, you just kind of try your best to just keep it simple, block things out, and just throw strikes, and, you know, focus on what you are there to do. And it definitely helps to have a crowd behind you. I think you can sense the urgency, sure, but I just try and focus on what my job is when I'm out there. Q. Ernie, you go right back to the '99 Pan Am Games at Winnipeg. This team has always sort of been that underdog, you know, the smaller team that beats the giants once in awhile. Do you need to -- you know, you ended up third, I think, Winnipeg. You beat the U.S. last time, but you don't finish off and beat Mexico in advance. Is that just a culture that people hoist on this team, or is that -- you know, that underdog thing, is that something that you guys feel and do you need to take the next step, I guess? ERNIE WHITT: You know, to me, maybe the media thinks that we're the underdogs. But I think if you talk to the teams that we're playing against, I don't think they've ever taken us lightly. You know, you look on paper and, of course, all the big names that the U.S.A. has, Venezuela has. But, again, I'll take the line-up that we have and match them position player by position player any day. And I'll take that line-up and match it against a lot of the big league clubs right now. So, saying that, we don't mind being the underdog, you know, if that's the way that you want to portray us. But we know that we have a lot of fight in our guts and we will continue to fight to the very end. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Ernie. Thank you, Vince. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|