KRIS MEDLEN
On his outing:
“I felt great. I felt like I was ahead of guys. It was just one of those frustrating games really. I felt like I was ahead of guys and they’re a team that doesn’t strike out a lot. I think they lead the league in not striking out. They put the balls in play. I felt like some of the hits were off the plate, some pretty good pitches and Posey for one, two-seamer down and in, on the corner, double to left. Fastball off the plate away next at-bat double to right. He’s an extremely good hitter and they’ve got some pesky guys up there. Crawford fought off a pitch at his shoulders for a base hit. Just frustrating. Obviously you’re not going to get guys out every single time but you feel like your percentages are better when you make your pitches and I think I went back and looked and I felt like I made good pitches. They don’t strike out. They put the ball in play and they found some holes. Plus we have a guy throwing a no-hitter on the other side too. So obviously got to give him some credit for shutting us down.”
On pitches not being too good, then:
“I don’t feel like it was one of those things where I was trying to go away and it was a fastball down the middle. If you god look, the one to Posey was about five, six inches off the plate away. Crawford fought off a pretty good two-strike pitch. I just felt like I couldn’t do anything today, other than execute my pitches and worry about what I can control and other than that, they put some decent swings on some pitches and put them in play.”
On if felt similar to start in San Francisco:
“Not at all. I felt like I was throwing fastballs to both sides of the plate, going in and out and they made contact. They squared some balls up but they also had a couple bloop hits, I’ll take some bloop hits too. Overall they’re World Series champs and they’re obviously a pretty good team.”
On Bumgarner being tough against Braves:
“He’s deceptive. He’s coming out of the crowd. I hear the guys talking about all the time, in San Fran he’s kind of on the left side of the rubber and he’s got that really low angle, so it’s tough to see. He’s funky. He shows his back to you. It’s the first time I ever faced him and I was just swinging at everything. If he threw it in the dirt or over my head, I was probably swinging because I couldn’t see anything. He’s tough. He’s been good for the past few years now. We need to go up there and have better at-bats. But it’s not like he’s just throwing the same pitch over and over and over again. He’s mixing it well and going in and out. He’s a pitcher. He did well against us.”
On Beachy’s setback:
“Obviously he knows what to do. He’s done all the rehab and he’s at the point now where he can come back. He’s about to come back. When I was at that point, I popped some scar tissue. Things happen. He’s going to keep going, no doubt about that. I don’t know what they’ve told him, what, take a week or two off, and just go right back at it. You feel bad for him, but it’s just part of the process. It’s a surgery that’s done all the time now. It’s still not like a guarantee, or everything is not going to go smoothly every time so just something you’ve got to battle through. Just like anything else, if you battle through the negative stuff, the bad stuff, then it’s going to make the good times even better. Just rehab and getting going at it and he’ll be back brand new.”
ANDRELTON SIMMONS
On Bumgarner vs. Braves this year:
“Against us, he’s been painting the corners, both sides, with all his pitches pretty much. That’s about it. He threw good. You’ve just got to give it to him. He threw good. Their hitters made good swings at tough pitches at times.”
On if he pitched backwards at times:
“He definitely pitched with all his pitches. He used everything. Everything was working for him pretty much. He took advantage of it, used his cutter a lot, or slider, whatever it is, used both sides of the plate.”
FREDI GONZALEZ
On Bumgarner:
“He changed speeds, it’s a slider to right-handed hitters, also cutters, and his change-up. He was pretty good. Right from the very beginning we go down 1-0 and they added some runs which probably made him even tougher to face. But he was pretty good. Our at-bats didn’t look very good because of that. He threw breaking pitches behind in the count and spotted his fastball, made some great pitches in two-strike situations to our hitters. We couldn’t put the ball in play when we got two strikes. On the other hand, they got to two strikes and they got a lot of, put the bat on the ball and they got some hits. Top of my head, 0-2, 1-2 hits there were four, five, six of those hits. When you put the ball in play, funny things happen.”
On Medlen:
“His last couple innings were OK. He got ahead in the count. He just couldn’t put them away.”
On Blanco and Posey tough outs for Braves:
“They’ve been hot. Even Posey’s last out there against Carp was a rocket to the second baseman on an 0-2 count. When you’re that hot, your outs are even hard. And he is. And Blanco seems to think, he gets big hits against us. I don’t know what he does against the rest of the league but he gets some big hits against us.”
On Wood’s balk:
“I haven’t seen it on the replay but live, it looked like he started up and stopped. And for him, he’ll take that as a learning, kind of slow the game down a little bit. I think he was kind of in the area of picking up the sign and getting into the set position and he changed his mind or stopped. I thought again, just looking at live, I thought he started and stopped.”
On him not facing a ton of baserunners this year:
“No, this is the first time he’s really gotten himself in a jam. So it was good for him to get out of that jam.”
On talking to Beachy:
“I talked to Beach before the game started. Beach is such a perfectionist. And he thinks that this is a setback or something and it really isn’t. He hasn’t had a setback all year and it’s something that we’re going to take a little precaution with it, really, but I think knowing Beach and knowing the way he is and as much hard work as he’s given to this, he had that target date. We said, it was just a target date. It was never written in pen. It was written in pencil. So what? You don’t hit that, take a breather, whatever we’ve got to do, and continue on. There’s very few pitchers that go through Tommy John and Tommy John rehab without having some kind of something, and we explained that to him. And I think he understood. He was a little disappointed. We all know the way he is and his goals. If it’s not the 18th this month it’ll be a little later on, whenever he’s ready.”
