ALEX WOOD
On if didn’t have command he had a week ago:
“Yeah for sure. I didn’t have a very good breaking ball and obviously a lot of pitches left over the plate. They made some adjustments from last week and any time you have back to back starts against a team that swings it well at home that’s tough in and of itself. You can’t make a whole lot of mistakes and obviously there were a whole lot of mistakes made by me tonight, a few I wish I had back. That’s baseball.”
On mindset coming off last game vs. Marlins:
“Same way I approach every start. I want to go out and get some early contact, go deep in the game, give the team a chance to win. I don’t think anybody goes out there trying to strike out 14 guys. You just want to produce a quality start and keep us in the game and give us a chance. I obviously didn’t do that too.”
On the pitch to Stanton:
“It was a hanging breaking ball, tried to go backdoor breaking ball and I left it over the plate. A guy that strong, even if he hits it off the end of the bat he’s probably up in the air and you make a mistake the guy is probably going to put it out of the ballpark. You can’t afford to make mistakes up here, much less make a mistake to a guy like that.”
FREDDIE FREEMAN
On Fernandez not needing to strike out 14 to be good:
“Same as last time. He’s good every time. He does that every single time out.”
On trying to be more aggressive early in the count:
“I think that’s everybody’s game plan when a guy can throw any pitch for a strike, you just want to go up there and try and get the best pitch you can. Sometimes that’s the first pitch. That’s what we were trying to do tonight but Jose’s good. Every pitch he’s able to throw for a strike and he’s able to put that same pitch – if you swing and miss and get to two strikes – he’s able to put it at your ankles too. So he’s just one of those guys you’ve got to battle. Now he’s got us three times. We got him one. We’ve got to see if we can do something different next time.”
On if see any difference in Wood:
“Face the same guy twice in a week sometimes you can get to that guy but it’s just one start for Alex. You put that behind you and move on. They put some balls in play and they got a little rally going and once they got one, it seemed like Jose was…that’s all he needed. It’s one of those things we’ve just got to put behind us if we lose 1-0 or 9-0, it’s still a loss. We’ve got to go on against Eovaldi tomorrow.”
FREDI GONZALEZ
On Wood hanging tough until sixth:
“He was matching him pitch for pitch. I thought it was going to be another one-run game, another tough game. I think you look back, I’m sure we’ll sit back and look at film tomorrow. There were a lot of balls over the plate. That’s uncharacteristic of Woody. I’ll chalk it up to one of those starts. After about three or four really, really good ones, he happened to put some balls over the plate and they got it with some people on base. Maybe we score first on that ball that Pena hit, play at the plate. If we tally that up, it may end up being a different story. Give up what nine runs. Just a lot of balls over the plate.”
On what he was arguing at the plate:
“I thought maybe he got his hand underneath it, and why not take a look at it, because from the history we have seen, one run in this game might have made a big difference. Obviously it didn’t play out that way. We looked at it and our replay guy said they make the right call.”
On Fernandez getting better of Pastornicky on baserunning play:
“He’s a pretty savvy guy off the mound. I don’t think he had a play with Pena at first base and maybe arm-faking Tyler would bite and he did. And it’s a tough play for a baserunner. If he does throw the ball to first base, now he walks home. I think it was a pretty good heads-up play by Fernandez there.”
On if third goes differently if Doumit might be playing deeper than some:
“I’m not going to throw that one on Ryan there. It’s a ball hit hard, and I don’t know if he plays another five feet closer he makes the play there or not because it’s a line drive coming at you pretty hard.”
On the curveball Stanton hit:
“Hit it to the opposite field 400 feet, but it’s one of those he’s bound to have one of those outings. We’ve got to figure out a way to beat Fernandez. and not everybody is Cy Young and you still got to beat Cy Young every once in a while. We won’t see him for a month or so, go on to tomorrow’s starter.”
On if Heyward’s hit makes him think lefty lineup is going to work:
“They put the ball in play. And you look at the numbers, righties have a difficult time hitting with that slider so I thought our left-handed hitting lineup put the ball in play. I thought Ryan Doumit hit a ball up the middle that Lucas made a nice play on early in the game. I thought Pena could have gotten a base hit on that ball down the third base line and he still might change that. The key was put the ball in play, get the lineup out there that could do that, and we do that. We have second and third up, and he’s a stingy guy. He isn’t going to give it up.”
