WBC: “Relentless” Great Britain, “Hungry” Mexico Prepared
PHOENIX, Mar. 14 — The World Baseball Classic game between Great Britain and Mexico has the potential to make the Pool C standings topsy turvy. A Great Britain win would take the title of “biggest win in British baseball history” away from Monday’s victory over Colombia. It would also threaten to keep Mexico from advancing to the quarterfinals. A victory for Mexico, however, would put them in control of their own destiny.
Great Britain manager Drew Spencer expects to see “some very hard-hit baseballs” and “good pitching.” He called Mexico “a team that’s going to be hungry and want to attack.” Spencer added, “I think they want to make sure they put themselves in a good position. We’re expecting them to be on the attack, looking to hunt and probably ambush as well.” Spencer also said his team will have the same mindset they’ve had every game. In previous pregame press conferences, he has said that their mindset is to have a “relentless ability to punch back.” Pitching-wise, he feels confident, saying he has “a lot of guys fresh, a lot of guys ready to go.”
Mexico Manager Benji Gil
Mexico, despite being favored, is not taking Great Britain lightly. Manager Benji Gil thinks they’re “going to be relentless.” He added, “They’re going to do everything they can to kind of put themselves back in the tournament. Obviously, they’re not thinking about anything else other than winning.”
Scouting-wise, he said, “I know they have good speed. Maybe not as experienced a team as the other ones in our group. And that’s kind of to be expected, right, being that they don’t have much history as far as baseball.”
“But we’re not looking past them. We’re not going to look past them. We’re going to look at them like it’s the U.S. team. The only thing is with a little less information than we had on them. At the end of the day, it’s obvious they have less experience and accomplishments. But we’re not looking past them. We’re going to take this game as the most important game. We can’t do anything about the last two games. And we can’t do anything about tomorrow until tomorrow. So our main focus is being the best version of our team today against an opponent that’s trying to beat us.”
First pitch will be at 7:08 pm Arizona Time/10:08 pm Eastern Time.
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