Braves quotes from Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran, A.J. Pierzysnki and Fredi Gonzalez, and quotes from the Nationals’ Dan Uggla, after the Braves 13-12 loss to Washington.
**AJ PIERZYNSKI
Getting four hits, four RBIs but losing
“It sucks. To score 12 runs and to lose is hard to fathom with our opening-day guy on the mound. Go up 9-1 in the second inning, I mean, we’re supposed to win. Give them credit, they just kept coming back and chipping away. And Unfortunately in the ninth inning, we made a mistake to Uggla and he didn’t miss it. It just sucks. There’s no other way to put it. Just sucks.”
On Teheran, seeing anything that concerns you?
“I don’t know. He’s throwing all his pitches, he’s throwing strikes. I don’t know, you’d have to ask Roger and those guys. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer on that one. The New York start, it looked like he was just cold in the first inning. Once he got through the first inning he was OK. But tonight, he was just a little bit off. I don’t know what he said, I don’t know what Roger said, I don’t know, I haven’t looked at anything yet. Tomorrow I’ll come in and look at it, and try to figure something out with him.”
Seem like more location than stuff, with Teheran?
“Yeah, location is the key. This team (Nationals) has a bunch of guys who have a lot of at-bats off him and have some pretty good numbers off of him. So it’s about location and trying to just make pitches when you can, and tonight he didn’t do that and it just didn’t work.”
On blowing the big early leads, Teheran, Avilan, Grilli all giving up multiple runs
“All these guys have been so good, you just don’t expect it to happen. Tonight was just a night where it all kind of fell apart in one game. Move on and get ready for tomorrow.”
**FREDDIE FREEMAN
On the loss
“That was a tough one, but have to take positives from it. Our offense is swinging the bats well. It’s usually our pitching staff picking us up, so they’re bound to make a couple of mistakes here and there. We’ve got to come back and win the series tomorrow.”
Coming back from this loss tough?
“You play 162 games, you can’t go on one. This is a tough loss, no one can deny that, but we’ve got to come out there tomorrow, we’ve got a series to win against a division rival. We’ve got to take care of business.”
On Teheran’s struggles
“Everybody goes through a little slump. I went through a slump a few days ago, he’s allowed to do that too. He’ll figure it out. He’s an All-Star for a reason. We have all the confidence in the world in him.”
On fans booing Uggla
“As a friend, it’s tough, obviously. He played the game the right way, hustled every single time. Fans are going to react how fans want to react. It’s definitely tough, but he kind of shut them up in the ninth inning.”
On Pierzynski
“He’s been on fire since Day 1. He was hitting in spring training and it’s carried over into the season. He’s moved right into the four-hole and kept it going.”
**FREDI GONZALEZ
On the wrenching loss
“This is a case of letting a team hang around. Right from the very beginning, we go out and score seven, eight, nine runs, and they just kept hanging around, and we let them do that. This is the major leagues. Anybody can run you out of the ballpark, and that’s what happened there at the end. We just kind of let them hang around.
“Offensively we had some great plate appearances and great nights (by hitters). But when your starting pitching doesn’t get you to a certain point in the game – we’ve talked about this a lot – you put certain guys (relievers) in positions where they shouldn’t be, and today was a perfect example of that. Let them hang around, let them hang around, you know. You still feel pretty darn good when you’ve got a two-run lead in the ninth inning with Grilli with the ball in his hand. He’s human. So we’ll see how we react tomorrow. This is a tough one. Tough one to swallow. You score 12 runs and don’t get a chance to shake hands.”
Are you worried about Teheran at all after these past three rough starts?
“I am a little bit. Because that’s not him. He’s usually a guy you give him a lead, he’s a bulldog and you have to go try to get the ball out of his hand in the eighth inning with a 12-run lead. So yeah, I’m a little concerned. Lot of home runs. I think the stuff is there, the miles per hour is there, but the location is not … and I’m just looking from the side of the field, I’ll look at the (video) tomorrow morning, but it looks like they had some pretty good swings all night at him, in all kinds of different counts. I think it’s more location than it is stuff-wise.”
All indications the knee is fine?
“I haven’t gotten one injury report on the knee. But there’s something. Whether it’s just a little mechanical adjustment that have to make, or whatever it may be. I was a little concerned about the miles per hour in New York; he was at 88, 89, 90, we were thinking because it was cold. But here it was nice and he was throwing 92, 93. He stayed at 92, 93 the whole night. So it’s not that. To me it’s just a matter of location, but yeah, I’m a little concerned about it. And I’m sure Roger (McDowell) and him will sit down and watch some video and see if we can get that corrected, because these games tonight are the (type) that got him in the All-Star game last year; he would not let anybody come back and get in a game.”
On Uggla still being able to hit the long ball
“When he came up there with runners at first and second, it almost … we’ve seen him do it. You make a mistake with him and he runs you out of the ballpark. It doesn’t even have to be a mistake, really. He won the game. He had some really, really good at-bats against us. One last night and couple that scored some runs (tonight).”
I know you like him a lot, but that’s got to tear your heart out when he does that to you guys
“Oh, geez. It doesn’t matter if it was Uggla or… it doesn’t matter. It’s a hard one. But now we’ll see. I think our club is pretty resilient. We’ve got some tough guys in there. We’ll see how we come out tomorrow. We’ve got Woody pitching and hopefuly he gives us a good chance to win a ballgame.”
**JULIO TEHERAN
On his struggles tonight
“I don’t know what happened. I’ve just got to keep working, get ready for the next one.”
Concerned with how you’re throwing right now?
“No, I’m just trying to work hard and get prepared for my next one.”
More mechanical than anything?
“I don’t know. Still working to find out what’s going on. I feel really good, my pitches, everything feels good.”
Health-wise, everything’s good?
“Yeah.”
You think it’s more command, location of pitches?
“It’s more location than anything else. I feel good with all my pitches, but I miss sometimes. I don’t know what’s going on.”
**Nationals 2B DAN UGGLA
On the homer in the ninth that turned 12-10 deficit into 13-10 Nationals win
“I can’t lie. That felt good.”
On the pitch he hit
“It was a fastball, I was able to catch up to it. Once I hit it, a kind of feeling of ease came over me because I hadn’t felt that feeling in a long time. That was my first homer this year. It was cool.”
Did he fight with himself to not think about hitting a winning homer?
“No, not at all. That’s pretty much kind of all I was thinking about. I was just chomping at the bit to get a chance and an opportunity to do something like that. Loby had a great at-bat and Espinosa grinded out his at-bat. That kind of set it up and I got lucky he kind of left one out over and I caught up to it.
Doing it here make more special?
“It was cool. This stadium, this place, is very special to me. I’ve had a lot of great memories. Whatever the case it, everybody knows the story of how it’s kind of gone the last couple years. But that doesn’t take away from any of my good memories here. I love Atlanta. I love the fans here. I love everything about this place. This is baseball. You move on. I’m with the Nationals now and that was a pretty cool chance to step up and do something to contribute this organization.”
On the comeback
A lot of times when you get up six, seven, eight, nine runs that early in the game it is kind of easy to relax. They did not. Every time we scored a run, they scored one too, that’s what It felt like anyways. I felt like Freddie and A.J. were up every freaking inning. We just kept going, kept going. Got some big hits out of a lot of guys tonight and we set ourselves up to have a chance and it went our way tonight.
On celebration in the dugout after homer
“There are some crazy dudes in here. They get excited and love to show it. It fired me up. I am a pretty low-key, mellow guy but seeing them excited—I was already pretty jacked up—but seeing how exciting they were and the energy that flows through your body and through the dugout, it was cool.”
Feel different at plate?
“I feel a lot different. I was hitting the ball OK early on in the season, not great. Something clicked, everything kind of synced up about a week ago. I was waiting on an opportunity to get back in there to get some at-bats, see some pitches, and get comfortable. That’s kind of what has gone on the last couple days.”
Did you hear the Atlanta reception?
“A little bit. It didn’t get in my head at all. I didn’t really know what to expect. But I had so many people throughout the course of the off season come up to me and tell me how supporitive they are and how proud they are and how they are going to miss me. But that’s baseball. I didn’t perform to my capabblities the last couple of years and that’s kind of the way it goes. I’ve moved on and hopefully they’ve moved on and that’s that.”
On silencing the boos
“The good thing about getting booed, somebody told me a long time ago they don’t boo nobodies. It’s kind of cool to get booed every once in a while. It’s good to hear some cheers at home, hear some boos and do something good. They kind of booed even harder after that. I don’t know about shutting them up but it was cool it went our way tonight.”
Scherzer poured syrup on you?
“We’ve got some crazy dudes in here. I’m sure I looked pretty appetizing after that. I’ve got to get new clothes, new hat, new glove and all of that. Hopefully that’s the last time we do that.”
