Japan 8, China 1
DEAN TREANOR: We lost. That's my impression.
Actually, I'll tell you what, to be honest with you, I thought in the middle of this game, I thought I was going to be having the second press conference tonight.
Q. (No translation.)
DEAN TREANOR: Is that a question? Okay. Yeah, you know, we made some pitches early in the game in the middle of the game to keep us in the game, and then we let it get away from us there in the last couple of innings. But I really liked how we pitched early to be the.
Again, our starters struggled in the first two innings, but bullpen came in and kept us in the game and really gave us a chance to win this game tonight. Like I said, in the middle innings, I thought that what we did, we had a legitimate chance to win this game tonight and we just didn't get it done.
Q. What was your strategy with your pitching?
DEAN TREANOR: We have a young pitching staff, so we have to go with what we have. You know, obviously when the game got to a certain point, we had to try to keep some pitching for tomorrow and the next day.
So, you know, the strategy was we ad game plan. We just didn't get it execute the tonight. But again, there were spots in this game that we pitched very well. We got some big outs. Got out of some innings and they had a chance to really blow this game open early and we did a really great job of staying in the game.
Q. What was your strategy with your pitching
DEAN TREANOR: Well, we knew going in it was going to be a tough challenge for us tonight with Shohei on the mound tonight. But I liked our approach. I do. We had some good swings against him but you know, Shohei is Shohei, and he showed, you know, he showed, really, who he is tonight. Pitched a little differently than I thought he would to be honest with you, and honestly just very effective. I don't know if he was working on some things tonight but he obviously threw the ball well.
Q. (No translation.)
DEAN TREANOR: Again, like I said, I have no idea what his plan was coming into the game. But he threw a lot of sliders tonight, which was very effective for him. He threw a front door slider to right-handed hitters and really tied us up. I just, you know, it -- I thought I might see something a little bit different tonight but obviously he had a plan going into the game and obviously he executed it very well.
Q. Did you have a plan to attack in the batter's box that didn't involve public transportation?
DEAN TREANOR: Yeah, unfortunately he made that bus tonight. We did have an approach, and I thought we had a plan against him. We wanted to be aggressive at the plate, swing early and I thought we did that. You know, his stuff is obviously elite, but you know, I like the idea, or I like how the energy was in the dugout when he was in there. You know, I think that we had some chances against him. But again, his stuff played out tonight.
But I liked our approach. I liked how we went up there, we were aggressive and we took swings against him. I think it's going to bode well for us tomorrow.
Q. In this game, Chinese game hitters are better than before. So how do you change and what's your comment on their hits?
DEAN TREANOR: Well, I think, you know, again, we were facing very tough pitching tonight, and like I said, I thought we had some good swings, and we were in this game until the seventh inning, and for me at that point, the game could have gone either way, and we needed to get runners on base, and we did not. And then our pitching let the game get away there at the end.
But I think it's going to carry over tomorrow. I think in there you said something about this is better than in the past, but there's no moral victory. There's no, you know -- there were a lot of good things tonight, a lot of good things that happened tonight and it's going to carry over for us in the next three games.
Q. (No translation.)
DEAN TREANOR: The home run, obviously it got us on the board and it really got the energy going in the dugout. Like I said, I felt, we felt we had a chance to win this game tonight and we did put ourselves in a position to win. It was a big home run in the idea that we got on the board. We needed to score.
How it's going to carry over -- we need to pitch better, that's for sure. For us to be relevant in this and do what I expect us to do, we need to pitch better. You know, we need to get obviously more runners on base but a lot of that tonight had to do with Japan's pitching.
But I thought we had some good at-bats. You know, we just need to pitch better and you know, if you look at the scoreboard, with three errors on there, we have to play clean, knowing that when we came into this tournament, that each night we have to play clean, and we did not do that tonight.
Q. Do you think that the score line suggests that the real gap between China and Japan?
DEAN TREANOR: Not at all.
Q. Should it be smaller?
DEAN TREANOR: I think tonight we showed that we can play with Japan and I feel very strongly about that. You know, I don't normally look in that other dugout but when it's 3-1 late in the game, I'm not sure that they thought that that thing was over. I think the gap is -- whatever it was before, I don't think there's a gap. We showed that we can play with Japan, and tonight, you know, other than some things that we need to clean-up, I think we showed that we can play with anybody in this tournament.
Japan is one of the -- if I'm not mistaken, they are No. 1 ranked in the world. I think that, again the future of baseball in China is huge. And our future in this tournament, I think we are going to continue to show that we can play and that we can play on this stage.
Q. Who is your starting pitcher?
DEAN TREANOR: Zhou Fuyang, I think is how it's pronounced, and you're right, tomorrow's game, in the scheme of things for this tournament, tomorrow is a must-win for us. We have to win this game tomorrow. We had a quick meeting after the game, and that's going to be our focus is to come out tomorrow and find a way to win this game tomorrow.
So he's going to start for us, but like I said before, that every pitcher is life and everybody is going to be life tomorrow and we will use our staff every way that we can to get that win.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports