Quotes from Kris Medlen, Freddie Freeman, B.J. and Justin Upton and manager Fredi Gonzalez following Wednesday's 6-3 victory over the Nationals.
KRIS MEDLEN
On finishing road trip strong:
“It helps, knowing you can sweep the team that’s chasing you. I felt like I needed to step up and close out the series and I felt great. It’s probably the best I’ve felt all year. I felt like I was throwing my curveball for strikes and for chase. Any time I have that third pitch it’s really going to help me. My fastball location was there too.”
On each of last four starts step in right direction:
“I don’t care how many games back they are, they’re not going to roll over and die, they’ve got some pretty good hitters over there, but I just felt like if I kept certain guys off the bases, I could control the game. It’s a step in the right direction, another one, which is encouraging. On to the next one.”
On the intensity the teams continues to play with:
“We’re playing loose. It’s how you grind through 100 and however many games you have to play. You stay loose. Just have fun. We definitely have a fun team and a very talented team as well. Any time as a starter you can keep a team close and give it to our bullpen, they’re doing very well back there after us.”
On Justin swinging well:
“He’s a guy we depend on. I think certain guys were starting slow and one guy would be doing well and a couple guys wouldn’t be. I think right now everybody is just kind of molded together and clicking. B.J. is swinging the bat well, which is huge for us. So this is exactly what we’ve been waiting for, for our offense to click like this and the pitching to just be consistent.”
On if taking advantage psychologically now vs. Nats:
“When you come in here and face a team like this who has this kind of talent, you know what they’re capable of but I think if you execute your pitches and I think our offense has had some pretty good games against them, not even this year, even last year when they won the division. I thought we put up some pretty good at-bats against some pretty tough pitchers, made their bullpen work a little bit. And we’re doing the same things this year. Obviously you want to come in here and sweep every team but you don’t think about it that way.”
On his approach to their lineup:
“You want to keep guys off base. It all started with Werth. He knows when to be patient, he knows when to pick his spots. He got me today. I tried to not, get cute, with Harper but he hits fastballs and he can definitely hit my fastball. He’s not a guy I can necessarily go in and pump heaters against. Try to get cute a little bit, fell behind and walked him. Werth did his thing, then it all started with Werth in the seventh inning 3-0, swinging, he’s not going to miss that. He’s that good of a hitter.”
On if could tell it would be a good night:
“I’ve had nights where I go out and have a 1-2-3 first inning and I’m like ‘oh I feel great’ and then give up five, so after the second, third, fourth inning I was like ‘All right.’ Even when I gave up the home run, I was like that was one pitch that I messed up. Obviously when you feel good, but you need to carry that through an entire outing.”
On if loose because of experience in 2011:
“I was coming back from Tommy John so I was more on the outside looking in, even though I was in the clubhouse. It’s just a different group of guys, a different mindset. The coaching staff learns from that kind of stuff, not to press, just to relax. You absolutely learn from experiences like that. We’re definitely not going to take this lead that we have now for granted.”
FREDDIE FREEMAN
On working Zimmerman for a lot of pitches:
“The first couple of innings we really worked him. That first inning we got him up to 30 pitches, that’s huge. He’s a great pitcher and we were able to get in that bullpen, we got into a couple times early in this series. We got to him and strung a couple hits together in the later innings. Our ratio was too thrilling in the first few innings but we were able to get to them.”
On not really imagining coming in and sweeping a series here:
“This is a big series. We pushed the lead to three more games up on them. We came in here and we let them know. We’re here to stay and they’re going to have to come to our place, what next week? I think they’re going to want some payback, so we’ve got to be ready for them.”
On the way the Uptons are swinging:
“The whole outfield tonight, they were unbelievable tonight. B.J. looks amazing, Justin obviously, he’s pretty much carried us the last couple months he’s put us on his back and taken us. JHey with a huge two-out knock off Krol. That was a game-changer right there.”
JUSTIN UPTON
On sweeping Nats against their big three pitchers:
“We had to battle these guys. You know you’re not going to have easy at-bats. We grinded for what we got, and our pitching did a great job of keeping them off the board too.”
On riding it out when you feel good at the plate:
“Every time you step in the box, you know it’s you against him, you don’t have a lot of other things going on. You’re not thinking about anything else but battling the pitcher and it’s the mentality you have to take out there every night.”
On B.J. moving in right direction:
“He’s been putting good swings on and getting hits. It looks like he’s comfortable. That’s what we’re going to need down the stretch. We need everybody to go up and be able to put together a good at-bat and stay in a rhythm and hopefully those things will work out for us.”
B.J. UPTON
On this streak:
“Even in times when we’ve been down in a game some critical moments, there’s no sense of panic. Just keep going out there and playing the game and playing good baseball. You hear a lot about the homer but we didn’t really do a lot of that this trip. We came up with some timely ones but overall we’ve been manufacturing runs, moving guys over, getting timely base hits, and it’s what we expect ourselves to do.”.
On feeling good about sweeping this team here:
“Definitely, they’re a good ball club. The standings could definitely fool you. They’re a good ball club and we know that. We didn’t think they were going to be a pushover coming in here. We swept them and that says a lot. We’ve just got to keep going and playing good baseball.”
On if he’s as comfortable as he’s been at the plate:
“I’m starting to get there. I’m definitely starting to feel pretty good up there. We’ve just got to keep working and try to maintain it, keep it where it is. Tonight is probably the best I’ve felt, again hitting the ball hard the other way, stayed on a couple breaking balls. Things are starting to come around.”
JASON HEYWARD
On the two-out, two-strike hit:
“Trying to stay on the ball, get a good pitch to hit, try to put it in play, hit it hard, find a hole right there. Fortunately enough I was able to come through.”
On the roll team is on:
“It’s a lot of fun, a lot of good pressure, fun pressure. We come every day looking to have some fun, looking to take on the challenge of teams coming after us, just continue to answer right now. We’re doing it a lot of ways with the bullpen doing an outstanding job, different guys stepping up. BMac doing his thing behind the plate, contributing with hits as he can, two-out hits from each guy in the lineup. It’s fun. We did a good job tonight getting their starter out early.”
FREDI GONZALEZ
On if as good as we’ve seen from Medlen this year:
“Yes, other than one pitch that came back over the plate on Werth, I thought he was about as good as we’ve seen him. We did a nice job just keeping the pressure on. We scored three in the eighth. The ninth inning didn’t go quite like we wanted but it ended a nice road trip. It’ll be a good off day tomorrow, then go back at them again.”
On Justin swinging the bat like April:
“Both Justin and B.J. are swinging the bat and getting on base. It’s nice to see.”
On Heyward’s two-strike two-out go-ahead single:
“Yeah and he leads off the game with a double and I thought we had a great approach against Zimmermann. He had almost 90 pitches in four innings. We just kept the pressure on.”
On more often than not coming through in scoring opportunities:
“Yeah we haven’t missed very many opportunities, even though in the (fourth) inning we had a chance and we didn’t put a crooked number up. I think after Medlen had a sac fly, we had first and third and didn’t add on after that. But you can’t complain. We’re sitting here nitpicking. We had a hell of a road trip.”
On still good to have off day after 13 in a row:
“Yeah, we need to recharge a little bit. When you’re winning that many games in a row, you’re using a lot of bullets out of the bullpen, the same guys. We came in and we won three and we didn’t use Ayala, Varvaro or Downs.”
On the team not letting up:
“These guys are playing good baseball, we’re pitching really good and playing good defense. Let’s just keep going.”
