JUSTIN UPTON
On if opposite-field homer, single a sign of feeling locked in:
“Yeah it’s always nice to be able to drive the ball the other way and I got a few pitches to do that tonight. It definitely felt good. That’s always a good sign.”
On any specific adjustments:
“Tonight I was just comfortable and the only thing I can do is just try to take that same exact feel to tomorrow night and the next day and try to make something of it.”
On home run measured at 477 feet, if same feeling as last April:
“Yeah of course on that one. In my mind, they all count. I don’t care if they had to hit the green wall behind the wall. It’s always cool to hit them a long way but like I said all of them count.”
On looking forward to when whole lineup gets going:
“It’s early in the season, a lot of ball to be played. We want to have those times, where the entire offense is clicking because it is dangerous when we can all be on the same page and everybody is feeling pretty good. We look forward to those days. But right now we have to grind out wins any way we can, if it’s on one guy’s back or two guys’ those are things we’re going to have to do until things start clicking.”
DAVID HALE
On his outing:
“It was just one of those days I didn’t have command of the fastball at all and I had to battle the whole time. It’s tough to do that through the entire game….I was just living my sinker out away (to lefties) too far.”
On Young’s night:
“Letting him on three out of the five innings, the leadoff batter, it’s tough to pitch with the leadoff batter on. It makes it very difficult.”
On not feeling fastball command:
“I felt good but that fastball command wasn’t great. I’ve just got to keep the leadoff batters off the bags and command that fastball a little bit better.”
On frustrating given how well you’ve pitched:
“Yeah, it is frustrating when such a simple pitch and one that’s supposed to be my bread and butter is just missing. It’s one of those days, like I said, and it happens I guess.”
RYAN DOUMIT
On Hale’s lack of command:
“Just spraying the ball a little bit. He’s a sinkerball pitcher and he was just spraying his sinker a little bit and falling behind in counts. That’s a pretty good offenseive team when you fall behind. You’ve got to give them something to hit, and it’s the story of baseball.”
On Young being aggressive on the bases:
“He’s a burner. He’s one of the fastest guys in the league and you saw that today. Getting on base with bunts, hitting triples and stealing bases. He’s a guy you want to keep off the basepaths.”
On Hale, just a minor adjustment here or there away:
“Minor adjustment. He’s got tremendous stuff. That sinker, if he can locate it and throw it for a strike, it’s tough to elevate something like that. You’ll see a lot of guys beat it into the ground. I think he’ll even admit it, he didn’t have his best sinker tonight but when it’s on he’s going to be pretty good.”
FREDI GONZALEZ
On the game:
“Right off the very beginning, David didn’t give us a solid outing, walked five. He was really struggling with his mechanics a little bit. It seemed like a majority of the walks were to left-handed hitters, so I thought Anthony came in and did a terrific job with the bases loaded and one out there to get out of that jam. The score is tied at that point. It’s funny out of the bullpen, when somebody comes in and doesn’t do the job that you expect them to do it kind of screws up the rest of the way. Last night we ran into it a little bit in the ninth inning there, bringing Kimbrel in and then today in the seventh. It’s still nine games into the season so we’ll figure that out and gets some guys in the right situation.”
On encouraging signs from J. Upton:
“That’s a really good sign. I thought his last at-bat yesterday, he hit that line drive to center field. You start seeing that. You start seeing some good at-bats being put together, that’s encouraging.”
On Mets baserunning, stolen bases:
“Some of those guys wouldn’t be on if we hadn’t walked them. we did that, it helped those guys out. Young scored four runs by himself… That pretty much beat us.”
On if alluding to trouble Avilan ran into in seventh:
“Yeah that’s not him. Usually he goes 1, 2, 3 that inning, gets those left-handers out, the game is still tied. That’s what I’m alluding to, somebody doesn’t do the job, or doesn’t get a guy they’re supposed to get out and then all of a sudden you put other guys in a situation where they’re not comfortable yet or that kind of stuff. He’s been really good for the last year and a half so we’ll get him straightened out.”
On if he felt fine coming off hamstring cramp:
“Yeah, yeah.”
