World Baseball Classic: Pool B - Italy vs Mexico
Wednesday, 11 March, 2026
Houston, Texas, USA
Daikin Park
Team Italy
Vinnie Pasquantino
Postgame Press Conference
Q. Obviously a three-homer night is historic, how does it feel from handing out the espresso to actually managing to take it yourself? And do you think you're going to sleep tonight after all those espressos?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: I think I'm okay in terms of sleep. I'm a coffee drinker.
It was cool. It was nice to get involved in the action from the other side. It's nice to get kissed on my cheeks. So that was nice.
Just nice to be involved and help the team offensively. It's no secret how I'd been doing prior. So you know we worked really hard to try to get right and tonight was a good night. We're excited for Saturday.
Is Seth Lugo pitching on Saturday, do we know?
THE MODERATOR: We don't know yet.
Q. Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in a World Series game, and he becomes known as Mr. October.
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: Mr. March?
Q. Some might call you Mr. March.
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: No, no. And this is, like, the regular season of the tournament, too. So it's just a good night. That's it. This will be forgotten very soon. But you know, anytime you can just say Reggie Jackson's name to me is cool.
But it's special. I wasn't really thinking about it. Honestly, I was really happy with the 2-2 take I had that at-bat. I had been chasing quite a bit to the point that, you know, I wanted to just cry. Just like, hey, stop chasing balls. Just take balls. And I took that pitch. And I think I was about as happy as I could be.
So I was happy with that and obviously the result that followed was cool. It was a good night. But we've got to flip the page and get to Saturday.
Q. You were launching balls pretty good in batting practice, then first time up you laid down a bunt. What was the thought process there?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: Please get on base. It was as simple as that. Just try to do something to help the team.
Francisco and I had talked about it. I said, Skip, if you need to drop me in order, do it because I understand. It's been bad.
But I felt like I was still competing and giving it my best. Nolan McLean made me look like I'd never hit a baseball before last night. So I'm glad we were able to do something productive tonight.
But, yeah, just trying to do anything to help the team. And then I was able to -- I thought Duran caught it, to be honest. And I heard a fan, like, maybe knocked it out of his glove. I'd like to thank that fan for that.
Q. When was your last three-homer game?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: Tonight. I've never done it before. So I don't have a lot of multi-homer games in general, but tonight is the first time I've ever done it.
Q. College?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: No.
Q. High school?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: Little League, never.
Q. Never?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: The Hall of Fame reached out. Normally I'm used to seeing the Hall of Fame reach out to one of my teammates in Kansas City -- actually, two of my teammates in Kansas. So I played with some special guys, a lot of my teammates. It's the first time they've ever reached out for something of mine. But never. I don't know, it's interesting. It's pretty cool.
Q. What did you give them?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: They liked the bat. I said I need the bat for a few more days. (Laughter).
Q. Can you take us through the, I guess, the celebratory wine bottles -- who gets them, where you get them. And did you award yourself tonight?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: So it started with Jason, our PR guy, who has been amazing for us. Or James, as some call him. Was it your idea? We knew we were going to do like players of the game but we didn't have anything planned. And Jason said, how about bottles of wine and I'll make them nicer for every win.
But last night I forgot to take the brown paper bags off of them when I handed them out. So it looked like I was passing 40s around to guys on the team after we won, which was -- that's pretty good. I don't know if any pictures were taken last night. I tell them to stop taking video when I'm talking. We know how that can go. It's not fair to anybody.
So, yeah, I gave it to myself tonight, but I passed it on to Marco Mazzieri who runs FIBS and who's made this all possible. And he's the reason why that we're all blessed to be on this team. So he received the bottle of wine tonight because of everything he's done for us and how fortunate we are to play for him.
Q. Francisco Cervelli said that this was your team, and all the credit is for you. Tell me something about that.
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: I'm like weirdly emotional tonight, to the point I'm thinking about crying, which is funny for a tournament in March.
But this has been -- there's a lot of backstory to this of how this team came about and how we picked certain guys and how certain guys aren't playing. There's different reasons to play and to not play. A lot of guys trying to make teams.
There's a lot of really special individuals that are trying to make teams right now that chose to come represent the country of Italy in this tournament.
I'm just honored that Francisco and Ned and Marco and Jorge -- I can just name all the coaches -- I'm so thankful for those guys for allowing me to be myself and to lead this team the way that I've kind of seen from a player perspective.
They have to do what they need to do from a leadership side, from a coaching staff. But to kind of give me the reins to say, all right, this is your team, what do you want it to look like. It doesn't mean that I'm making decisions or anything, but it just means, like, what can we do to get the best out of every player? And honestly, like the C on my chest, which we argued about if I was going to wear or not, that's what that means to me. It wouldn't matter if I wore a C or didn't wear a C. What matters is trying to get the best out of my teammates, and they've given me the freedom to try to do that, whether it's taking mound visits or talking to the group.
They've just been incredible. And I'm so thankful for Francisco. And what he's doing for Italian baseball shouldn't be forgotten, because we talked about it the other day, but when we leave here, whenever that may be, he's going to go back over to Italy, and he's going to make a real difference out there.
I'm just fortunate enough to get to know him through this process. He's been incredible. And we've done such a great job as a team. I'm so proud of these guys.
Q. Last night you guys had arguably the greatest victory in Italian baseball history. Did you guys talk after the game as far as, hey, let's don't celebrate here, we've got more business to go; it would have been easy to have a letdown?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: It was something that I thought about quite a bit. I mean, I ran all the scenarios in my head. I mean, just being realistic, there was a lot of conversation of you know if different scenarios arise, what do we do? Then finally, we just got together and said, you know what, let's just win the game. Like, not that it's that simple, but we can't give up four runs or whatever it was, or you can't give up five, you can only give up four, but if you give up four and you lose, you're in. Like, it's just a headache.
So last night when we were celebrating, we had a good time in the locker room. But I said to the guys, like, once midnight hit, guys, we've got to get going. We stayed and we hung out and we had a good time, but it was a lot of hanging out and just, what are we going to do tomorrow? How are we going to win this game tomorrow? And that was really special. So last night was an awesome night.
The vibe in the clubhouse today was awesome. Knowing that the odds of you losing a game, but it's 4-0, whatever, are slim. So let's go do what we can to win this game and move on, and that's what we did tonight. And we are the Pool B champions, and that's pretty special.
Q. A lot of players have talked about how amazing these tournaments are with the club chemistry you guys are building together. Is there stuff if you had the ability that you would take back to Kansas from stuff that you've been doing with Team Italy?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: Yeah, but it's just so different because these games are -- like, I've never been more stressed in eight-run games in my life, these past two games. I mean, if that's a game in August, right, like the game's kind of over, the fans aren't into it. But I mean it's 9-1 and it's the loudest I've ever heard in a building. Hey, not to get on a tangent, but like, shout out to the city of Houston and for the United States fans, for the Team Mexico fans for showing up the way that they did. I mean, that's why we do this. That's why this tournament is so special because you know the teams are taking it seriously, obviously, and as we should, but we're also having a great time doing it and just representing our countries and for us to be able to to do what we did the past two nights in front of, you know, relatively hostile environments -- not that anybody was being like mean -- but, just, it's loud. It's awesome.
That's why you play the game. And especially for some of these guys, some of the younger guys that have not gotten a taste of the Big Leagues yet, I mean they just got a taste of the World Series game the past two nights.
I don't have a taste of that, but now I've got some experience in that kind of environment. And we were winning by eight. I can only imagine when you're up by 1, where it's a tie game or something, so, yeah, it's just an incredible experience. This tournament is second to none, in my opinion.
Just because it's 20 teams, your ball's to the wall every game, every -- I mean, we were talking about it last night. Man, we gave up a run late. If we had kept it to five, we had an extra run today. Like it was kind of fun because I felt like I was in a travel tournament, all right, but normally you don't know what you need to do going into the game, which makes it very uncomfortable because it's just uncomfortable. So I'm glad that we just took care of the business and didn't have to worry about that, because when we did it in Taiwan a few years ago, we weren't even sure if we clinched when we won the game. They had to call and tell us that we won.
Tonight, we just handled business. And that was the expectation and it was awesome.
Q. When you think about your tradition of wearing suits to the games, could you ever pull it off in Kansas City?
VINNIE PASQUANTINO: Like I've been wearing these five straight games. Same one. It probably stinks really bad. But no, definitely not in Kansas City. I don't know if Sal would go for that. I don't know if Bob would go for that. I don't know if I'd go for that. It gets really hot in Kansas City. So I think suits are great on occasion, but it's been a lot of fun wearing it. This is really comfortable. I actually like that I found a suit which I really like, which is nice, but no, I don't think that's a tradition that I can bring back to Kansas City.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports164901-1-1045 2026-03-12 03:41:00 GMT
